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VISIONS : 

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A STUDY OF FALSE SIGHT 

( PSEUD OPIA.) 



BY 



EDWARD H. CLARKE, M. D. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND MEMORIAL SKETCH 

BY 

OLIVER, WENDELL HOLMES, M. D. 




BOSTON: 

HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 

8Tbe Htoersfte Press, dDamfcritp. 

1880. 



^t 






Copyright, 1878, 
By HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 



All rights reserved* 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 

•TEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

H 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



IS 



6" A" 



To 

THE MEMORY OF 

MY WIFE, 

WHO INSPIEED ME WITH COURAGE TO UNDERTAKE THE PREPARATION OF 

THIS ESSAY, 

and who by her pen rendered its preparation possible ; 

And to 

MY DAUGHTER/ 

WHO, TAKING THE PEN SNATCHED BY DEATH FROM HER MOTHE*, 

CONTINUED HER MOTHER'S INSPIRATION, 

AND ASSUMED HER MOTHER'S TASK, 

ARE DEDICATED 



" The view of things by means of the eyes is full of decep- 
tion, as also is that through the ears and the other senses : .... 
tut that it is the brain which produces the perceptions of hear- 
ing, seeing, and smelling, and that from these come memory 
and opinion."" — Ph^edo of Plato. 



\ 



- 



7 



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CONTENTS. 



PART I. 



PAcn 

Visions common to Human Experience. Definitions . 5-19 

Cases and Comments 10-50 

Apparatus of Vision, etc 50 

Physiological Analysis of Vision .... 55 

Functions of the Tubercula Quadrigemina ... 68 

Visual Centre of the Hemispheres .... 104 

The Frontal Lobes . 125 

Effects of Habit, Association, Emotion, Volition, ex- 
pectant Attention 138 

Relations of the Blood with the Brain, Metamor- 
phosis of Tissue, Waste, etc 153 

Effects of Drugs: 

Digitalis 166 

Quinine 167 

Strychnine 168 

The Bromides 169 

Opium • 174 

Indian Hemp (Hashish) 179 

Alcohol 186 

Ether 190 

Influence of Disease 193 

Influence of Volition 201 

Remarkable Cases 206, 209 

Visions peculiar tc Children 212 

Summary, with Illustrative Figure .... 218-223 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



PART n. 

Explanation of Visions. Sight not a Function of the 

Eyes, but of thjs Brain .... 
Explanation of Cases given in the First Part 
Case communicated by Dr. Weir Mitchell . 

Spinoza's Vision 

Macbeth's Vision of the Dagger . 
Visions of the Dying . . . 

Case of Dr. 

Case from the " New Quarterly Review " 

Case of a Child 

Case of Mrs. 

Visions of Sleep 

Case of exposed Brain ..... 
Different Varieties of Dreams 
Case of a Medical Student .... 
Lord Brougham's Vision ... 
Case from the " Psychological Journal " 
Case from Wundt . . 



PAGE 

224 
227 
246 
254 
256 
258 
262 
266 
274 
276 
279 
282 
303 
305 
307 
313 
315 



nTTEODUOTIOM". 

By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, M. D. 



The unfinished essay here presented to the public 
has a singular and quite exceptional interest. When 
its author had read his death sentence, and knew that 
the malignant disease of which he was the subject 
would be slow in its work and involve great suffering, 
he felt that he must have something to occupy his mind 
and turn it away in some measure from dwelling only 
on the tortures of his body. He therefore took up the 
study of a question in which he had long been inter- 
ested and made it his daily occupation to write upon it. 
So long as his strength lasted sufficiently, he wrote 
with his own hand. After this he employed another 
to write at his dictation. 

This disease had already made deep inroads upon his 
constitution, and he was every day becoming more de- 
pendent on the ministrations of those about him, when 
his wife, who had been his nurse, his amanuensis, his 
patient and tender companion, was seized with sudden 
illness which after a few days ended in her death. It 
is not often that a human heart is tried at once with 
the pangs of bodily suffering and the agony of grief 
as his was at this distressing period. But he bore up 



viii INTRODUCTION, 

against it all with a courage and serenity which it 
seemed as if nothing could subdue. After a time he 
returned to his work. His mind had lost nothing of its 
discriminating force, his language nothing of its clear- 
ness. Again I found him. busy with his manuscripts 
when I entered his chamber at my frequent friendly 
visits. He became again interested in the trains of 
thought he had been following. He would hand me a 
page or two of his manuscript for criticism, or bring up 
some special point for my consideration. All this time 
the deadly internal disease was feeding on his life, and 
not an hour was free from suffering except when his 
pains were lulled into temporary quiet by the use of 
narcotics. At length the pen dropped from his hand, 
the mind ceased from its labors, he lingered a little 
longer in a state of being that was divided between 
anguish and stupor, and the end long wished for came 
at last. 

Throughout his long and wearing illness he had 
watched himself as he would have watched one of his 
patients. He knew what was almost certainly to be 
the issue of his disease, and had known it from a very 
early period. Yet he did not speak of himself as if he 
knew his case to be hopeless. It seemed to me some- 
times as if he felt that it was not courteous to his vis- 
itor to appear in the attitude of a condemned man, and 
that he spoke of the possibility that the disease might 
not prove malignant in its nature rather to make his 
guest feel more cheerfully about him than because he 
himself indulged in any vain illusion. 

The essay bears evidence of the philosophical state 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

of mind in which it was written. I have been sur- 
prised to find how little correction of any kind it re- 
quired. From the first page to the last it is clear, 
connected, without a trace of any disturbing influence. 

A strange thought suggests itself, which is perhaps 
too fanciful to be mentioned in this connection. I can- 
not help being reminded of the Indian brave's death- 
song, in which he calmly defies his tormentors. Socrates 
was about to die when he discoursed in those imperish- 
able words which the Phaedo records for us, but he was 
not in bodily torture. This serene disquisition was writ- 
ten in hours of distress which were intervals of agony. 
No stoic of the woods, no philosopher of antiquity ever 
faced his doom with a more unshaken constancy and 
courage, with a nobler tranquillity, than the writer of 
this essay. Had it no other claim upon the reader, 
it would always have an interest as the mental legacy 
of one who was much honored and loved, and as a les- 
son of manhood too precious to be forgotten. 

Although the essay is left unfinished, it should not 
be called a fragment. It would not be difficult to com- 
plete it by the addition of a very moderate number of 
pages. It was left by Dr. Clarke to my decision what 
disposition should be made of the manuscript. I had 
heard many portions of it, and discussed many points 
involved in it with him. But I read it all over care- 
fully, and had no hesitation in deciding that, imperfect 
as it was, it should be given to the public. I did not 
look up the literature of the subject to see for myself 
just how far Dr. Clarke's ideas had been anticipated, or 
how far they were in opposition to those of any other 



X INTRODUCTION, 

physiologist or psychologist.- I made no changes of 
any importance, and no additions whatever. The man- 
uscript was singularly free from errors and corrections, 
both that portion of it written with his own hand, and 
the parts which were copied for him, and my work was 
hardly needed in addition to that of the corrector of 
the press. 

I have made out a table of contents which will per- 
haps be a sufficient guide to the general and the scien- 
tific reader, in looking after what specially interests 
them. But I will indicate a few of the pages which 
will be found more particularly attractive to most of 
those who take up the essay. 

As Dr. Clarke resolves so large a part of mental 
action into pure automatism, it is only fair to remem- 
ber these words of his, showing that he recognized 
something beyond this. He is speaking of the visions 
of the dying. 

" Probably all such visions as these are automatic. 
But yet, who, believing in God and personal immortal- 
ity, as the writer rejoices in doing, will dare to say ab- 
solutely all ? Will dare to assert there is no possible 
exception ? " (p. 272.) It must be borne in mind, 
too, that he recognized the " ego " as distinct from '• his 
engine," the bodily mechanism (p. 168), and that he 
speaks of the will as a primum mobile, — an initial 
force, — a cause." (p. 211.) 

Ingenious and interesting as are the speculative por- 
tions of the essay, the numerous hitherto unrecorded 
cases will perhaps be found its most permanently val- 
uable contribution to science. Physiological opinions, 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

and even commonly accepted results, may be rejected as 
unsatisfactory by another generation of experimenters 
and theorists ; but well recorded cases, drawn up by 
trustworthy witnesses, do not lose their value with the 
lapse of time. Such are many of these which are pre- 
sented to the reader. I may venture to add that I my- 
self knew personally the subjects of the cases recorded 
on pages 39, 262, and 277, and have heard a minute and 
circumstantial account of each of these cases from the 
lips of Dr. Clarke himself. With reference to the last 
case, Dr. Clarke mentioned a circumstance to me not 
alluded to in the essay. At the very instant of disso- 
lution, it seemed to him, as he sat at the dying lady's 
bedside, that there arose " something " — an undefined 
yet perfectly apprehended somewhat, to which he could 
give no name, but which was like a departing presence. 
I should have listened to this story less receptively, it 
may be, but for the fact that I had heard the very 
same experience, almost in the very same words, from 
the lips of one whose evidence is eminently to be relied 
upon. With the last breath of the parent she was 
watching, she had the consciousness that " something " 
arose, as if the " spirit " had made itself cognizable at 
the moment of quitting its mortal tenement. The co- 
incidence in every respect of these two experiences has 
seemed to me to justify their mention in this place. 

The facts relating to the frequency of visions in 
children, and their power of summoning them up by an 
exercise of will, p. 212, also deserve special attention. 

Whatever Dr. Clarke has to say concerning the ac- 
tion of drugs is peculiarly entitled to confidence, as he 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

was a most diligent student of their various modes of 
action, and had a great experience with them, more es- 
pecially in all that relates to the use and abuse of nar- 
cotics and stimulants. 

But there is one case recorded which I venture to 
say no human being who draws the breath of life can 
read without profound interest. It is that which may 
be found on page 262. It is a deep-sea sounding of 
the dark abyss where each of us all is to sink out of 
sight sooner or later. The wise physician is on friendly 
terms with death. It is as much a physiological ne- 
cessity as life, and though, like the visit of an officer 
of justice, its entrance must not be allowed without a 
proper warrant, yet that warrant is sure to be issued 
at last. The wonderful calmness of the observed and 
the observer, in this almost if not quite unique case, 
impart a perfectly scientific character to this observa- 
tion of an event which is commonly yielded passively 
to the empire of emotion. Many, who through fear of 
death have been all their life-time subject to bondage, 
will, I believe, find more consolation in this recital than 
in almost any other human record. 

I will only add a single remark for the scientific 
reader. The expressions " cell-groups," " polarizing 
the cells," and some other terms must be accepted, 
rather as a convenient form of signifying an unknown 
change of condition, than as intended to be taken lit- 
erally. And I may say in conclusion that the whole 
essay must be read not with an over-critical spirit, but 
in the constant recollection of the mental conflict going 
on during the long agony in the course of which it was 
written. 



INTRODUCTION. xm 

I subjoin, at the request of his nearest relative, the 
obituary notice which was furnished by myself to the 
" Boston Daily Advertiser," A few very trifling al- 
terations only have been made, and the reader will, I 
trust, overlook any repetitions of what has been said 
in the preceding pages. 

EDWARD HAMMOND CLARKE. 

BORN, FEBRUARY 2, 1820 ; DIED, NOVEMBER 30, 1877. 

The death of Dr. Clarke has not fallen upon our 
community as a surprise. It has long been known that 
he was suffering from a disease so nearly hopeless, as 
to leave scarcely a possibility of its retracing its steady 
progress toward a fatal issue. For the last three years 
he has been unable to practice his profession. A year 
ago he might be met occasionally walking languidly in 
the Public Garden ; for some months he has been con- 
fined to his chamber, and for the past few weeks to his 
bed. The internal disease which was wasting his life 
was full of anguish. He was never free from pain 
except when under the influence of anodynes, and from 
time to time was racked with agony. It is a great sor- 
row to lose him, but all who know what he has been 
enduring must be thankful that he is released from his 
bondage to suffering. The tributes which have been 
rendered to his memory might seem to render unneces- 
sary the words which can do little more than repeat 
what has been so well said already. I need only refer 
to the full and very interesting sketch of his life in the 
" Evening Transcript," and to the eloquent discourses 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

delivered from the pulpit, by the Rev. Mr. Ware and 
the Rev. Dr. Bartol, which the public has had the priv- 
ilege of reading. But as one of the friends who have 
seen him often and intimately during the years of his 
morttal illness, I cannot forbear to add my testimony 
to that of others, who have watched him through the 
course of that protracted martyrdom. 

The antecedents of a man so distinguished by his 
high qualities will always be looked at with interest. 
Almost invariably some elements of the mental and 
moral traits which marked him will be found in the 
line of ancestry from which he is descended. Dr. 
Clarke's father, the Rev. Pitt Clarke, was one of those 
excellent New England clergymen, whose blood seems 
to carry the scholarly and personal virtues with it to 
their descendants, oftentimes for successive generations. 
From a brief account of his life, written by himself, 
and a sketch by his son, the late Manlius Stimson 
Clarke, it is easy to draw the portrait of the good pas- 
tor who, for forty-two years, ministered to the people 
of the pleasant village of Norton, Massachusetts. His 
simple, industrious habits, for he worked on his farm 
as well as preached to the farmers round him, his creed 
or " Confession of Faith," which he left as a legacy to 
his flock, a creed devout, humane, with a stronger flavor 
of Matthew's gospel than of Paul's epistles, but refer- 
ring all to the " sacred volume " as " the sole rule of 
his faith, preaching and practice " ; the love and confi- 
dence with which he was regarded in the community, — 
these would give the outline which the reverence and 
affection of his children filled up with their remem- 
brances. 



INTRODUCTION. xv 

We are apt to look, perhaps, with even more interest 
upon the mothers of those who have become justly 
distinguished and honored. Dr. Clarke's mother, Mary- 
Jones Stimson before marriage, second wife of his 
father, was one of those women who live and die 
known to but a few persons comparatively, but who 
are remembered by those few as more to be loved and 
admired than many whose names are familiar, and not 
undeservedly so, to the public. She was endowed with 
noble and attractive personal qualities, was very fond 
of literature, and left many poems, some of which are 
preserved in a small memorial volume and show a cul- 
tivated taste as well as warm affections. It is impos- 
sible to read the lines " To a Son in College,'' or " A 
Prayer," without feeliug that such a mother was worthy 
to be rewarded with such children as God gave her. 

Edward Hammond Clarke, her fourth and youngest 
child, was born in Norton, February 2, 1820, graduated 
at Harvard College in 1841, took his medical degree 
at Philadelphia in 1846, travelled extensively in Europe 
with the eldest son of the late Mr. Abbott Lawrence, 
and established himself at length in Boston, where he 
acquired and maintained a leading position among his 
contemporaries. In 1855 he was chosen Professor of 
Materia Medica in the medical school of Harvard Uni- 
versity, succeeding to the very distinguished Dr. Jacob 
Bigelow. This office he resigned in 1872, and was at 
once chosen a member of the Board of Overseers of the 
University. He still continued in active practice until 
assailed by the disease which ended in his death on the 
30th of November just past. 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

Returning to his early history, we find that the state 
of his health obliged him to leave college before the 
second term of the senior year, so that he could not 
take any part at commencement, but that he stood first 
in his class at the time of leaving. He had intended 
studying divinity, but circumstances changed his course, 
and he adopted the profession in which he attained 
great eminence, as he would have done in any other 
which he might have chosen. He would have been a 
very learned and acute theologian. Those who have 
heard him speak upon questions before legislative com- 
mittees cannot doubt that he would have been a pow- 
erful advocate. Calm in manner as in mind, clear in 
statement, looking at subjects in a broad way and from* 
many sides, yet shrewd to see on which side lay the 
truth he was in search of, he would have probably 
found his way from the bar to the bench, aud left the 
name of a wise, if not of a great, judge upon our 
records. 

No one ought to regret the choice which gave such 
a helper to lighten the burden of human infirmities. 
He had all the qualities which go to the making of a 
master in the art of healing ; " science " enough, but 
not so much in the shape of minute, unprofitable acqui- 
sition as to make him near-sighted ; very great indus- 
try ; love of his profession and entire concentration of 
his faculties upon it, with those mental qualities already 
spoken of as fitting him for other duties, but which 
equally fitted him to form a judicial opinion in the 
silent court-room where nature is trying one of her dif- 
ficult cases. 



INTRODUCTION. xvii 

Such a man is pretty sure to find his place in any- 
great centre of population. But to be recognized as 
standing at the head of the medical profession in a 
large city, or an extensive district, implies a previous 
long and arduous struggle, at least in one who comes 
unheralded and unknown. Every step of such a man's 
ascent must be made, like an Alpine climber's in the 
glacier, in the icy steep of indifference ; fortunate for 
him if he does not slip or is not crushed before he 
reaches the summit, where there is hardly room for 
more than one at a time. 

It was in such a position that Dr. Clarke stood when 
he felt the first symptoms of the disease to which he 
was to fall a victim. He cannot have been suffering 
very long from it when he consulted one of our most 
skilful surgeons, and learned the too probably malig- 
nant nature of the affection. There was a chance, per- 
haps, that the symptoms might be interpreted otherwise 
than as a certain warrant of death. For the greater 
part of the time, while the writer was an habitual vis- 
itor to his sick chamber, he was in the habit, if he 
referred to his disease at all, of speaking as if he had 
a chance of recovery. It was only a few weeks before 
his death that he spoke of the end as rapidly approach- 
ing, and then said that the trial of parting with life 
had been long over, even from the time when he had 
first sought the surgeon's opinion. One sleepless night, 
in which he walked his chamber alone with his fatal 
sentence ; a letter preparing the one nearest to him 
for the inevitable approaching future ; after that strug- 
gle he felt as if the darkest passage of the valley of the 
b 



xvm INTRODUCTION. 

shadow of death had been left behind him, and walked 
serenely forward from that day to the end. 

If all who knew him and leaned upon him as their 
cherished and trusted adviser ; if all who valued him 
and loved him as a friend ; if all who felt his impor- 
tance as an active and wise and public-spirited citizen ; 
if all whom his well-weighed and soberly stated opin- 
ions on educational and hygienic subjects have influ- 
enced, both at home and abroad ; if all the pupils who 
have sought his guidance in the important branch which 
he invested with so much attraction, as well as made 
affluent with fresh instruction, — if all these were to 
record their praises and their regrets, the volume must 
be ample that would hold his eulogy. 

There is only space for a brief notice of some of his 
excellences in different directions. And first of all, as a 
physician. It may be asked, what are the points of 
superiority which make the great practitioner? It is 
not the power of making a minute diagnosis ; in other 
words, of naming and localizing a disease with the 
greatest nicety. It is not the power of displaying, dif- 
ferentiating, and describing the effects of disease as 
shown in the degenerated organs which once belonged 
to a patient. Skill in these two branches is often found 
in the same individuals, and is always justly and greatly 
to be valued ; but one may be a skilful interpreter of 
the signs of disease, and an expert with the scalpel and 
the microscope, and yet very inferior as a practitioner 
to another who is far less instructed than himself in 
both of these departments. Given a fair acquaintance 
with the meaning of the ordinary signs and symptoms of 



INTRODUCTION. xix 

disease, and the alterations which give rise to them, the 
best practitioner is the one who seizes most readily and 
certainly the vital conditions and constitutional tenden- 
cies of the patient, and shows most sagacity, tact, and 
fertility of resources in dealing with the varying states 
of his mind and body, whether or not he has occasion 
to use special remedies for special purposes, as every 
routine practitioner is capable of doing. Here it was 
that Dr. Clarke showed his mastery. He read his 
patient's mind as every man must who would control 
another ; he took in the whole bodily condition and its 
changes by careful examinations, scrupulously recorded 
after his visits for the day were finished ; and he knew, 
as very few practitioners really know, what remedies 
could and could not do, — but especially what they 
could do in the way of alleviating suffering and shorten- 
ing or arresting curable diseases. 

As an instructor Dr. Clarke was the admiration of his 
pupils. His plan of teaching therapeutics was his own, 
and he not only spoke with authority, but made a sub- 
ject commonly thought among the least interesting of 
a medical course a great centre of attraction to the 
students of the medical school. In the councils of the 
Faculty his opinion was always listened to with respect, 
as coming from one of its wisest and most fair-minded 
members. 

As a writer he published no voluminous work. He 
contributed various articles on the Materia Medica to 
the " New American Cyclopaedia." In conjunction 
with Dr. Robert Amory, he published, in 1872, a small 
volume on the physiological and therapeutical action of 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

the bromides of potassium and ammonium. In 1876 he 
published, under the title of " Practical Medicine," a 
brief and clear account of the progress of medical 
knowledge during the century just finished. But noth- 
ing that came from his pen has been so universally read 
as his essay entitled " Sex in Education." This publi- 
cation was like a trumpet-call to battle, and started a 
contest which is not yet over. Dr. Clarke received a 
great number of letters and printed communications 
confirming his views, and was made the object of many 
attacks, which he bore with perfect equanimity, feeling 
that he had honestly given the results of his experience, 
having only the good of the community in view. A 
second essay, " The Building of a Brain," followed up 
the first, with various important propositions bearing 
on education, and was widely read, but provoked less 
sharp antagonism. He wrote a valuable letter on the 
park question, and on all subjects relating to public 
health his opinion was looked to as of very high 
authority. 

During the confinement of his last illness he occu- 
pied himself much with reading, and in the later part 
of the time, until his strength entirely failed him, with 
writing, chiefly on points of psychology which particu- 
larly interested him. He seemed to enjoy discussing 
nice and difficult questions with some of his visitors, 
and it was pleasant, following his lead, to see him for- 
get himself for a little while in the analysis of menta\ 
operations, in which he showed a power of steady am\ 
penetrating thought which would have given him a 
name in metaphysical speculation if he had concen 



INTRODUCTION. xxi 

trated his efforts in that direction. He had the great 
advantage of having studied the working of the mind 
under various exceptional conditions, and had many 
strange things to tell from his own experience, all of 
which he was disposed to account for without invoking 
any of the vulgar machinery commonly called in to ex- 
plain such phenomena. 

His constitution was gradually yielding to his dis- 
ease. The end which he had long foreseen as probable 
was growing more and more certain, if possible, and, 
of course, coming nearer and nearer. What affection 
could do to help him bear his anguish was done for him 
tenderly and lovingly by his devoted wife and daughter, 
and the friends who were anxious to render their ser- 
vices. In this strait of a dependent, suffering, and fail- 
ing life, the wife, to whom he looked for daily care and 
solace, who was to watch his decline and be with him 
in the last hour of earthly companionship, was seized 
with sudden illness, and died after a few days, leaving 
the dying husband, who had thought to have gone long 
before her. 

Under this sudden and overwhelming grief, with pain 
as his constant companion, with death always in full 
view, he bore himself with a steadfastness, a perfect 
quiet of aspect and manner which showed at once hi-s 
self-command and his self-submission to the orderings 
of that Providence in which he trusted. His rule in 
this world had been duty ; his faith in looking forward 
to the future was simple, untrammelled by mechanical 
forms or formulae, but having as its inmost principle the 
love which casteth out fear. 



xxii INTRODUCTION. 

How many families there are in this community that 
feel as if they could hardly live without the counsels of 
this good, skilful, wise physician, or die in peace with- 
out having had all his resources called upon to keep 
them breathing this sweet air of life a little longer! 
How many will feel that no one will ever read their 
conditions of mind and body as he did, or give himself 
up so unreservedly to the exactions of their too fre- 
quently selfish suffering, or bring into the sick chamber 
a look so tranquillizing and assuring ! Time will teach 
them that the art, which is long, does not perish with 
the fleeting life of its wisest practitioner ; that others, 
many of them, perhaps, his own former pupils, will 
deserve and gain their confidence ; that the affections, 
seeking new objects when the old are torn away, will 
surely find them ; but to many the best eulogy of the 
best physician who comes after him will be so long as 
they live, that he recalls to their memory the skill, 
the wisdom, the character of Doctor Edward Clarke. 



VISIONS. 



Visions have always held, and still hold, a 
place among the experiences of mankind. From 
the time that Abraham had a vision of angels in 
his tent, to the latest manifestation of modern 
spiritualism and spirit seeing ; among all nations, 
savage, civilized, and enlightened ; in all classes, 
whether cultivated or ignorant ; and in every 
phase of human development, oriental and occi- 
dental, Pagan, Christian, and Mohammedan, there 
have been those who saw, or who pretended to 
see, visions. Visions have not only been recog- 
nized as a part of the mysterious phenomena o£ 
disease, but of the equally mysterious phenomena 
of health. The hearty and strong, as well as the 
morbid and ill, have been visited by them. Nec- 
romancers and charlatans, seers and prophets, en- 
thusiasts and sober minded people, those who 
have deluded, and those who have inspired, the 
race, have, with varying degrees of earnestness 
and success, supported their claims to reverence 
or obedience, by the assertion that they could see 
what was hidden from the eyes of others. 



6 VISIONS. 

When we consider that such very different per- 
sonalities as Elijah and St. Paul, Buddha and Mo- 
hammed, St. Francis d' Assisi and Swedenborg, 
Joan of Arc, Luther and Bunyan, Indian Med- 
icine Men and Oriental Hakems, Convulsionists 
of St? Medard, inmates of asylums for the insane, 
invalids, elevated by the ecstasies of hysteria, and 
persons sunk in articulo mortis, opium and hash- 
ish eaters, alcohol drinkers, and others, have all 
seen visions, it seems as if such phenomena must 
be among the commonest experiences of human- 
ity, and of a character which ought not to pro- 
duce amazement or incredulity. But such is not 
the case. Visions are regarded, and naturally 
regarded, not only by scientific and thoughtful 
people, but by the common sense portion of the 
community, very much like ghosts, as unrealities. 
A few exceptions may be made in the case of 
apostles and teachers, but the vast majority of 
visions are classed among the delusions, vagaries, 
and fancies of mankind, or among the inexplicable 
phenomena of disease. Yet it must be admitted, 
after acknowledging to their fullest extent the 
obscurity, mystery, and charlatanism which covers 
up and infects the matter we are considering, that 
the denial of a substantial and real foundation to 
the phenomena of visions must be accompanied 
with a certain reserve. Sometimes the incredu- 
lity of the most skeptical has been staggered by 
the statements of those, whose mental soundness 
and recognized honesty precluded the suspicion of 



VISIONS. 7 

deception or insanity; but these exceptional in- 
stances have usually been summarily disposed of, 
by remanding them to the region of the myste- 
rious and unknowable. Now and then, some san- 
guine or philosophic hearer of such statements has 
returned a doubtful hope that science woulft yet 
penetrate the mystery that enveloped them, and 
arrive at an adequate solution of them, and per- 
haps has accompanied his hope with the vague as- 
sertion that — 

" There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." 

The persistence with which the truthfulness of 
visions has been affirmed, at all times, every- 
where, and by such a variety of individuals, is it- 
self a significant fact, and one that deserves con- 
sideration. It implies that below the nonsense, 
charlatanism, fanaticism, ignorance, and mystery, 
upon which visions are largely built up, there is 
somewhere a substratum of truth, if we could 
only get at it. Such a growth could never have 
appeared, nor would it continue to appear, if its 
roots did not draw their nutriment from some- 
thing more invigorating than fancy or deception. 
It must be admitted, moreover, that the question 
of the possible occurrence of visions is one of 
great interest and importance. Its interest lies 
in its intimate connection with the attractive and 
shadowy territory — the terra incognita, and de- 
batable ground — which stretches between the 



8 VISIONS. 

body and mind, and which connects this world 
with the next. Its importance lies in the fact 
that its solution, if a solution is possible, would 
not only throw light upon some of the intricate 
and vexed problems of psychology, but would aid 
materially in dissipating many popular supersti- 
tions and widely spread delusions. 

That there have been, and are, many persons 
who solemnly assert that they have seen visions, 
as well as dreamed dreams, is acknowledged. 
The question which it is proposed to investigate 
here is not whether such assertions are made, 
but upon what they are founded. Are visions, 
whether occurring in the sound or unsound, ex- 
cluding, of course, necromancy and cheating, pure 
figments of the imagination, or are they facts, 
resting upon a physiological basis ; and if the lat- 
ter, what are the conditions, and what is the 
mechanism of their production ? If any satisfac- 
tory answer to these inquiries can be given, it 
must be obtained, not from psychology or theol- 
ogy, but from physiology and pathology ; not 
from metaphysicians or priests, but from physi- 
cians and physiologists. Approaching the subject 
upon its physiological side, and supplementing 
physiological investigation by clinical observa- 
tion, it is possible to clear away some of the ob- 
scurity which covers it, and to pick out a few 
grains of wheat from the mass of surrounding 
chaff. Fortunately, recent discoveries in physiol- 
ogy are of a character to throw a partial, if not 



VISIONS. 9 

a full, light upon these and similar problems, and 
to give reasonable assurance of a complete solu- 
tion at some future period. 

It is unnecessary and unwise to complicate our 
present inquiry with any discussion of the differ- 
ence or identity of mind and matter. Whether 
mind is a product of matter, and so material, or an 
entity distinct from matter, it is admitted by all 
that it is manifested, so far as we know it, or can 
know it, in this world, only by and through mat- 
ter. The materialist and immaterialist are so far 
agreed. Obviously, then, the rational method of 
studying psychological phenomena is a physiolog- 
ical one. The brain being an organ of the mind, 
knowledge of it is an indispensable prerequisite 
to a comprehension of the latter ; x consequently, 
visions which are mental or subjective phenom- 
ena, must be conditioned, if they occur at all, as 
intellection is, by the brain through which they 
are displayed. They can appear only under def- 
inite modifications of the circulation, nutrition, 
and metamorphoses of the intracranial apparatus. 
The states of the brain, therefore, which permit, 
accompany, and modify visions, and not the re- 
ports of consciousness, should be investigated, 
in order to arrive at any intelligent notion of 

1 Admitting that the conception of spirit or mind, as abso- 
lutely independent of matter, is unthinkable, I cannot regard 
them as identical. It is not from any unwillingness to affirm 
my belief in an ego, that there is an apparent doubt in these 
statements, but from a desire to avoid the introduction of side 
issues. 



10 VISIONS. 

such singular occurrences. A knowledge of these 
states, that is, an acquaintance with the physiolog- 
ical conditions and mechanism of visions, would 
go a great way towards discovering the true char- 
acter of the latter. 

With the hope of contributing something to 
our knowledge of the natural history of visions, 
the following essay has been prepared. It is 
founded upon a series of cases, of which the ma- 
jority occurred under the writer's observation. 
The subjects of these visions were all persons of 
more than ordinary intelligence and cultivation. 
It is possible, perhaps probable, that this fact had 
a more intimate connection than that of mere 
coincidence with the visions reported. The de- 
velopment of the nervous system, and especially 
of the cerebral portion of the nervous system, 
which attends cultivation and intellectual power, 
is more likely than the intellectual development, 
which is permitted by brains of coarser fibre 
and quality, to afford an opportunity for the dis- 
play of extraordinary nervous phenomena. It will 
also be noticed, that all the individuals, whose 
cases are here presented, were themselves con- 
scious of the subjective character of their visions. 
Indeed, all other cases were purposely excluded. 
The conditions of hallucination, illusion, and delu- 
sion can be more easily and satisfactorily studied 
in persons who recognize the unreality of what 
besets them, than in those who entertain an op- 
posite conviction. 



VISIONS. 11 

Before going further, it is important to be sure 
that a definite and precise signification is attached 
to the principal terms we are to use, or at least to 
the one by which the subject we are to investigate 
is designated. Accuracy and clearness of state- 
ment are essential to accuracy and clearness of 
ideas. Unfortunately, the terms which have just 
been mentioned, hallucination, illusion, and delu- 
sion, are vaguely employed, and often confounded 
with each other. They have not acquired definite 
and distinct significations ; at least, not to such a 
degree that any one of them brings before the 
mind a peculiar and individual condition or no- 
tion, to the exclusion of the others. They are 
often used as if they were synonymous, and as if 
the conditions of the nervous system which they 
indicate were similar, or the same. This confu- 
sion undoubtedly arises from the uncertainty and 
inaccuracy which has existed, till recently, of 
our knowledge of their causes and character. 
Webster defines delusion, to be " false represen- 
tation .... illusion ; " illusion to be " decep- 
tive appearance .... false show ; " and hallu- 
cination to be " delusion, faulty sense, erroneous 
imagination." According to Worcester, delusion 
is "a false belief .... illusion;" illusion is 
" deception, as of the sight, mind, or imagination 
.... delusion ; " and hallucination is " a mor- 
bid error in one or more of the senses .... de- 
lirium .... delusion." Evidently, both of these 
lexicographers regard the above terms as nearly 



12 VISIONS. 

synonymous. Their definitions would lead an 
inquirer to suppose that delusion, illusion, and 
hallucination, instead of being different and dis- 
tinct physiological conditions, were almost identi- 
cal affections. Dr. William A. Hammond, who 
is aware of the existing confusion of ideas and 
language on this subject, has endeavored to get 
rid of it by careful definitions. He defines x Illu- 
sion to be " a false perception of a real sensorial 
impression. Thus a person, seeing a ball roll 
over the floor, and imagining it to be a mouse, 
has an illusion of the sense of sight." Hallucina- 
tion he defines to be " a false perception, without 
any material basis, and is centric in its origin. 
It is more, therefore, than an erroneous interpre- 
tation of a real object, for it is entirely formed by 
the mind." Delusion, according to the same au- 
thor, is " a false belief." An individual, who has 
an illusion or hallucination, and is sensible that 
they are not realities, is not deluded ; one who 
accepts them as facts is deluded. These distinc- 
tions are just and important. They are founded 
on the existence of three distinct classes of false 
perceptions, which have been discovered by physi- 
ological and clinical observation : viz. one of sub- 
jective, or as Dr. Hammond designates them, 
oentric perceptions, which are produced solely by 
cerebral action, and are recognized as false by the 
subjects of them ; a second class of objective, or 

1 Diseases of the Nervous System, by William A. Hammond, M. 
D., 6th ed., pp. 320, 321. 



VISIONS. 13 

eccentric false perceptions, which are recognized 
as false by the subjects of them, and are produced 
by external objects, acting on the visual appara- 
tus, ab- extra, that is, playing upon the individual 
from without, and hence the term illusion, from in 
and ludo, to play upon ; and a third class of false 
perceptions, which may be subjective or objective, 
or both together, in the reality of which the in- 
dividual believes, and so is deluded by them ; 
hence delusion, from de and ludo, to be played 
upon from within, or mocked by the brain. 

Noth withstanding the justness of these distinc- 
tions, it is difficult to keep them well in mind, and 
use the old names. Hallucination, illusion, and 
delusion, as the above citations from Webster and 
Worcester show, are so closely allied, in their or- 
dinary acceptation, that one not only suggests the 
others, but is often confounded with them, or is 
substituted for them. It would avoid ambiguity 
of language, and confusion of thought, to discard 
them altogether, at least, from scientific treatises, 
and employ new ones, if such could be found, 
which would describe, more accurately than these, 
the conditions they are intended to designate, 
and with which no preconceived notions are as- 
sociated. 

With the hope of attaining this object, the fol- 
lowing terms are proposed, and will be used in 
the present essay. The normal process of vision 
may be appropriately called Orthopia, from 6p66s 
and o7rro/>icu; and false perception, or vision, Pseu- 



14 VISIONS. 

dopia, from \f/€v8o<s and oVro/xat. According to this 
nomenclature, false perception, arising from the 
action of the intracranial visual apparatus, would 
be called subjective or centric pseudopia ; that 
arising from disturbance of the eye alone, oph- 
thalmic pseudopia ; and that produced by the 
presence of external objects, objective or eccen- 
tric pseudopia. An individual, conscious of the er- 
ror in his perceptions, would have conscious pseu- 
dopia ; otherwise, unconscious pseudopia. One 
advantage of these terms over the common ones 
of hallucination, illusion, and delusion, is that 
they indicate the precise part of the visual ap- 
paratus, whose structural or functional disturbance 
causes the false perceptions. Conscious centric 
(or subjective) pseudopia; unconscious centric 
(or subjective) pseudopia; conscious eccentric (or 
objective) pseudopia ; unconscious eccentric (or 
objective) pseudopia ; conscious retinal pseudo- 
pia ; unconscious retinal pseudopia, etc., etc. ; all 
indicate, with tolerable precision, the part from 
which visual derangement proceeds, and, to some 
extent, the character of the derangement. An- 
other and no slight advantage is, that no tradi- 
tional or preconceived notions are associated with 
these terms. 

The following cases form an appropriate intro- 
duction to a discussion of the physiological and 
pathological conditions of pseudopia, and they il- 
lustrate most of the important points to which ref- 
erence will afterwards be made. The first case 



VISIONS. 15 

is one of conscious centric or subjective pseu- 
dopia, occurring in the course of delirium tremens, 
or rather during convalescence from that malady. 
Subjective sight-seeing is not an unusual event in 
that affection, but it is not of less physiological 
importance, because it is familiar. 

CASE I. 

Conscious centric or subjective pseudopia in a man of middle 
age, resulting from the action of alcohol on the brain. 

Mr. C, a man of excellent natural abilities 
and liberal education, unfortunately became ad- 
dicted to the excessive use of alcoholic drinks. 
This led to the common results of intemper- 
ance, such as gastric derangement, nervous pros- 
tration, insomnia, and, at length, to attacks of 
delirium tremens. The latter never assumed a 
violent type, though they were sufficiently char- 
acteristic. The explanation of their mildness is 
probably to be found in the fact, that he did not 
live long enough for their more complete devel- 
opment. He died in middle life, before the age of 
forty, or somewhere about that time. The de- 
lirium which he exhibited was of the usual whim- 
sical and incoherent character. When it attacked 
him, his attendants and the furniture in his room 
would assume strange and distorted forms, and he 
would see, moving and flitting about his chamber, 
all sorts of creeping and crawling things, hideous 
shapes, hobgoblins, griffins, and unearthly and in- 



16 VISIONS. 

describable apparitions, such as are common to 
the delirium of this malady. On one occasion, 
when he was so far convalescent from an attack 
as to have slept the night previous to my visit, I 
asked him if sleep had driven off all his spectres 
and unearthly companions. He replied that all 
were gone but one, and that one was a large black 
dog, which still haunted him. 

" Where is he? 9 ' I inquired. 

" There," he said, pointing across the room, 
"standing on the bureau, under the mirror," 

I went to the spot, and putting my hand upon 
the centre of the bureau, asked, " Do I now touch 
the dog?" 

"No;" was the answer, "he has moved aside 
to the right." 

Carrying my hand to the right, " Where is he 
now ? " I continued. 

" Jumped down upon the floor," said the patient. 

I did not attempt to pursue the animal farther, 
and he soon vanished. Mr. C. talked intelligently 
about his spectres. Generally, he said he could 
recognize their character as subjective phenomena, 
but sometimes he found it a very difficult thing to 
do so. For instance, he stated that his wife once 
assumed, in his delirium, the appearance of a 
burglar or a thief, when she entered his apart- 
ment, and it was with extreme difficulty that he 
restrained himself from knocking her down. A 
sort of vague and shadowy doubt as to his own 
condition and the correctness of his judgment, 



VISIONS. 17 

alone prevented him from inflicting violence upon 
her. The seeing, or rather the perception, of the 
animals, spirits, and other beings, of his subjective 
menagerie, was nearly, and sometimes quite as 
distinct as that of real objects when he was well. 

The chief peculiarity of this case is the persist- 
ence of the apparition of the black dog, united 
with the distinctness with which the animal was 
seen. The spectres of delirium tremens are, un- 
fortunately, only too often brought to the notice 
of medical men ; but it is not often that the pa- 
tient, who is tormented by the vagaries of his 
brain, is able to recognize and describe the char- 
acter of his visions as clearly as Mr. C. did. 

It is well known that alcohol is not the only 
agent which can make men and women see with- 
out eyes, and hear without ears. Opium, ether, 
Indian hemp, belladonna, and their congeners 
possess a similar power ; but in what their power 
resides is not comprehended any better than is 
the cerebral mechanism by which such effects are 
produced. 

My personal experience of the vision-producing 
power of opium is so slight, that it scarcely de- 
serves to be reported ; but inasmuch as it illus- 
trates, as far as it goes, the subject of the present 
paper, it may not be inappropriate to record it. 
Among the most vivid recollections of my child- 
hood are those of visions, which followed the ad- 
ministration of paregoric or of some other form 
of opium, a drug which was occasionally given 



18 VISIONS. 

me, especially during the season of green fruits, 
when colic and similar troubles are apt to occur. 
Soon after taking the narcotic, strange sights and 
grotesque forms of all sorts of known and un- 
known animals, among which horses predomi- 
nated, sometimes in groups and sometimes singly, 
some with bodies and no heads, and some with 
heads and no bodies, some in full harness and 
some without bridle or saddle, and as wild as 
Mazeppa's steed, would fill my room, swarm 
about my bed, and run around and over my per- 
son. They made no noise, and never excited my 
fears. At first, I marvelled where they came 
from ; but I soon learned to associate them with 
opium, and enjoyed the spectacle, instead of 
dreading it, to such an extent, that I looked for- 
ward to a dose of opium with pleasure, and re- 
garded the amusement which it afforded me as 
some compensation for a sharp stomach ache. 
The spectres were distinct, spirited, and life like. 
They were most clearly visible and most natural 
when my eyes were closed, and would disappear 
rapidly upon opening my eyelids. I often tried 
to summon them, after taking opium, w^ith my 
eyes open, but then the spectre animals would 
not come. As soon as the soporific action man- 
ifested itself, they vanished, sometimes suddenly 
and sometimes with a lingering step, as if loath 
to go. The duration of their stay probably coin- 
cided with the primary stimulant action of the 
drug, for they rarely remained near me more 



VISIONS. 19 

than a quarter of an hour or thereabouts. With 
the approach of adult life, this peculiar action of 
opium almost entirely ceased. Whenever, of late 
years,. I have had occasion to take opium, I have 
watched for the coming of the old familiar spec- 
tres, but have only caught glimpses of them. 
Now and then, after taking twenty or thirty 
drops of laudanum, I have seen a horse's head, 
with ears erect, peering at me through the dark- 
ness, just enough to remind me of childhood's lost 
visions, and that was all. This experience is prob- 
ably not an unusual one ; and if not, it illustrates 
only more fully, than if it were, the fact that 
the machinery of cerebral vision may be easily 
set agoing in a large number of persons, if we 
know how to touch its secret springs, without 
any objective stimulus. Herein may possibly be 
found an explanation of the visions of the enthu- 
siasts and seers of all nations and ages, as well as 
of those of modern spiritualism, whenever the 
latter are not the result of sleight of hand, or 
other deception. 

The next case is an instance of conscious cen- 
tric or subjective pseudopia, which manifested it- 
self during the course of an epilepsy. It occurred 
under the observation of Dr. S. G. Webber, of 
Boston, to whose courtesy I am indebted for the 
opportunity of presenting it here. Sounds, flashes 
of light, and vague, shadowy, and momentary vis- 
ions, such as are described in this case, are not 



20 VISIONS. 

uncommon antecedents or consequents of an epi- 
leptic seizure. Little attention is usually paid to 
them by practitioners, though they are undoubt- 
edly connected with the grave cerebral disturb- 
ances which provoke epilepsy. At present, how- 
ever, we are concerned with them only as illus- 
trations of our subject. 



CASE *IL 

Mr. G. an intelligent young man, came under 
the observation of Dr. Webber, in April, 1870, in 
consequence of a visitation of epilepsy. He had 
been suffering from the disease for four years pre- 
viously. He had both the grand mal, with loss of 
consciousness, and the petit mal. " In the fall of 
1873," according to the report of Dr. Webber, " a 
new feature was observed in the nature of the at- 
tacks of petit mal. After lying down, and hence 
most frequently during the night, or early in the 
morning, he had visionary attacks, which he spoke 
of as a sort of double consciousness. While know- 
ing that he was in bed, he yet seemed to see ob- 
jects out of doors. In the first attack, he saw a 
man on horseback, riding helter skelter over the 
flower beds in the garden, and the flowers seemed 
to be artificial, made of paper. During these at- 
tacks, he has not always seen the same objects ; 
on one occasion, he saw a river of water, flow- 
ing along quietly, filled with the heads of seals ; 
these changed to soldiers, marching down a street. 



S 



VISIONS. 21 

Twice, the attack is mentioned as occurring dur- 
ing the day, while lying down for a nap. Once, 
thousands of men leaped up over a stone wall, 
near which he thought he stood ; also animals 
were seen in immense numbers, going across a 
marsh, keeping abreast for about a quarter of a 
mile ; then the whole quickly faded from view. 
These are examples which he gave of the attacks. 
It was rather more common to have a large num- 
ber of objects appear than solitary individuals. 

This is an instance of distinct conscious centric 
pseudopia. The cerebral disturbance which pro- 
duced it was undoubtedly the result, or a part of 
the condition, of the nerve centres, which was the 
cause of the patient's epilepsy. The support 
which this case lends to the doctrine, now gener- 
ally accepted, that all portions of the gray matter 
of the hemispheres are in communication with 
each other, and capable, when sufficiently excited, 
of calling forth each other's activity, will be al- 
luded to in another place. 

The visions, which are next described, are very 
different in their character, of longer duration, 
and apparently less intimately associated with 
grave disease of the nerve centres, than those 
which have just been reported. 



22 VISIONS. 



CASE III. 



Conscious centric or subjective pseudopia in a married 
woman, apparently connected with some febrile derange- 
ment of the system. 

The subject of this case, Mrs. B., is a lady 
nearly thirty years of age. She is the mother of 
several children, and though of a delicate organi- 
zation, enjoys a fair degree of general health. She 
is of a nervous temperament, which she keeps 
under excellent management, but which renders 
her susceptible to many influences that others 
would feel very slightly, or not at all. She is in- 
telligent and accomplished ; and if her early edu- 
cation aided the development of her congenital 
nervous tendencies, it also aided her to acquire 
the mental strength by which to control them. 
The visions, as she calls the phenomena, which 
she sometimes witnesses, and which she has often 
described to me, are usually the forerunner or at- 
tendant of some sort of febrile attack, like a cold, 
or simple fever, or gastric derangement; and they 
disappear when the attack is fully developed. She 
has learned to recognize them as purely subjective 
phenomena, altogether independent of any objec- 
tive reality, and now regards them as symptomatic 
of some physical derangement like those which 
have been just mentioned. When a child, she had 
the misfortune to lose her mother by drowning, 
and saw the corpse at a time, and under circum- 
stances, that affected her even more profoundly 



VISIONS. 23 

than such a terrible occurrence would be sure to 
do, under any circumstances. She never saw vis- 
ions till after this happened ; and it is her belief 
that they are in some way connected with it, in 
the relation of cause and effect, though how she 
cannot tell. 

The hallucination to which she is subject takes 
the form of a female figure, which commonly ap- 
pears suddenly, and without warning. The fig- 
ure is of natural size, dressed in white, sometimes 
wearing a blue ribbon, sometimes without any- 
thing of the sort, and frequently but not always 
carries its face averted. The form and the face 
are always the same, and are those of a stranger, 
not of an acquaintance. It comes unbidden, at 
any time of day or night, and is as liable to show 
itself in other places as in Mrs. B.'s own house. 
When it appears, it assumes various postures ; 
sometimes sitting, sometimes standing, and some- 
times walking. On one occasion she was going 
to dine out. On her way to the dinner, she felt 
an uncomfortable sensation in her head, like a 
coming headache, but was otherwise in fair con- 
dition. She did not renounce the dinner, but as 
she approached the table with the other guests, 
and was about to take the place selected for her, 
she noticed that the chair, appropriated to her, 
was already occupied. For a moment she had no 
doubt that a form of flesh and blood filled it, and 
was about to ask the hostess for another place, 
when she recognized her familiar spirit, which had 



24 visions. 

assumed such natural proportions and color as to 
deceive even herself. She thrust her fan into the 
spectre, so as to be sure it was an airy nothing, 
and then sat down. The figure moved aside and 
vanished. On another occasion, she sent for me 
professionally, because, though she felt pretty well, 
the spectre had made its appearance that morn- 
ing, and she was consequently sure that she would 
soon be ill. I found her with a pulse moderately 
accelerated, and with other symptoms of slight 
febrile disturbance, all of which disappeared under 
appropriate management, and with their disappear- 
ance the spectre departed also. She has learned 
by experience and observation to recognize the 
character of her strange visitor, and rightly regards 
the hallucination as 

" A false creation, 
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain/' 

and is not disturbed by it. There are times 
when it presents only a vague and indistinct out- 
line, like a shadow. At other times, its form, 
size, and appearance are so life-like and real, as 
to make its resemblance to a human being per- 
fect ; indeed, so exact has the counterfeit some- 
times been, that Mrs. B. could only ascertain its 
unreality, by the experiment of trying to touch 
it. It will sometimes take a chair, and sit near 
where she is reading, or at work, or by her 
bed, by the half hour or hour together, and then 
vanish as suddenly, and with as little apparent 



VISIONS. 25 

cause as it came. It should be added, that, 
notwithstanding long familiarity with it and its 
freaks, she confesses to a feeling of relief at its 
departure. 

The striking peculiarity of this case is the close 
similarity, amounting to identity, of the subjec- 
tive perception, produced by cerebral action alone, 
without any external stimulus or object, with 
that produced in the ordinary way by the rays of 
light from an external object, falling upon the 
retina. The cerebral condition or process, which 
was here induced by febrile or other disturbance, 
was so exactly like that produced by the move- 
ment of light from a female figure, entering the 
eye and thence sending a motion aloug the nerves 
to the gray matter of the anterior lobes of the 
brain, that the objective unreality could not be rec- 
ognized. In fact, under such circumstances, the 
brain is incompetent to discriminate between true 
and false perceptions, and can make the discrimi- 
nation only by using its other senses as means of 
correction or corroboration. This Mrs. B. had 
learned to do, and when in doubt, she employed 
the sense of touch to supplement and correct that 
of sight. Another peculiarity is the ease and cer- 
tainty with which she recognized the subjective 
character of the apparition. Few persons have 
ever been similarly affected, and few of those who 
have been have possessed the intelligence and 
temperament which enabled them to form a cor- 
rect notion of such singular phenomena. 



26 VISIONS. 

The next case differs from the preceding one 
in the variety of the visions described, and in the 
greater care with which they were observed by 
the subject of them. No ghosts or incorporeal 
visitants have ever put on a greater semblance of 
reality than these visual appearances. 



CASE IV. 

Conscious centric or subjective pseudopia, occurring in an 
unmarried woman; appearance of female figures, men, 
animals, and other forms. 

The subject of this case is a lady of middle 
age, who has long been an invalid. She has 
suffered most in her nervous system, though other 
parts of her organization have also been more or 
less affected. It should be added that her natural 
abilities and acquirements are of a high order, as 
the following description from her own pen of the 
hallucinations that at times beset her testifies. 
She learned very early to think for herself, and 
perhaps this is the reason why she recognized, so 
soon and so clearly as she did, the subjective 
character of her visions. She prepared the fol- 
lowing description of her case at my request* and 
has kindly permitted me to use it, a favor which 
the reader will fully appreciate : — 

" My earliest recollections are of a life made 
miserable by the daily companionship of a crowd 
of dreadful beings, visible, I know, only to myself. 
Like Madame de Stael, I did not believe in ghosts, 



visions* 27 

but feared them mortally. When I was about 
fifteen, we went to Europe for two years, and the 
change of scene, and of constant external interest, 
broke up my invisible world, and I have only en- 
tered it since in times of excitement or great fa- 
tigue. Of late years the most distinct visions have 
appeared only when sharp mental pain or anxiety 
has been added to bodily exhaustion. My sense 
of hearing has never deceived me, except that 
during my girlhood, in frequent nervous states of 
mind, all sounds would strike my ears discontin- 
uously, that is, with a time-beat as sharp and 
rhythmical as the movement of the baton by an 
orchestral conductor. 

" Several years ago one of my sisters was taken 
ill with typhoid fever. I was not strong enough 
to be of any assistance in her chamber, so I under- 
took to finish some work which she had com- 
menced, and became daily more and more worn 
out in my endeavors to carry it on. Anxiety, 
added to fatigue, finally brought back the old 
visions, which had not troubled me continuously 
for some years. Animals of all kinds, men, 
women, glaring-eyed giants, passed before or 
around me, until I often felt as though I were 
surrounded by a circle of magic lanterns, and 
would sometimes place the back of my chair 
against a wall, that at least my ghosts should not 
keep me constantly turning, as they passed be- 
hind me. One evening, feeling too tired to sit 
up for the latest report of my sister, which my 



28 VISIONS. 

mother brought me regularly, I went to bed, 
leaving my door wide open, so that the gas, from 
the adjoining entry, sent a stream of light across 
one half of my little chamber, leaving the rest 
somewhat in shadow. Soon I saw my mother 
walk slowly into the room, and stop at the foot 
of the bed. I remember feeling surprised that I 
had not heard her footstep, as she came through 
the passage. ' Well ? ' I said, inquiringly. No 
answer, but she took, slowly, two or three steps 
towards the side of the bed, and stopped again. 
'What is the matter?' I exclaimed. .Still no 
reply ; but again she moved slowly towards me. 
Thoroughly frightened by this ominous silence, I 
sprang up in bed, saying, ' Why dorCt you speak 
to me ? ' Until then her back had been turned to 
the door, but as I last spoke she turned, almost 
touching my arm, and the light falling on her 
face, showed me an entire stranger. She had 
heavy dark hair, and her face, quite young, was 
pale, and though calm, very sad. Over her 
shoulders was a child's woollen shawl, of a small 
plaid not familiar to me, which she drew closely 
about her, as though she were cold. Her right 
hand, which pressed the shawl against her side, 
was very white, and I was struck by the great 
beauty of its shape. The thought passed through 
my mind, ' Can she be a friend of the nurse ? But 
why has she been sent so mysteriously to me?' 
As I stared at her in speechless amazement, she 
fell to the floor. I instantly stooped over the side 



VISIONS. 29 

of the bed. To my consternation there was noth- 
ing to be seen ! Accustomed as I was to ghosts, 
if there had been anything in the least shadowy 
about my visitor, I should have suspected her 
tangibility; but so well defined was she, so vividly 
was her reality impressed upon me, that I could 
not believe that she had vanished. I looked into 
every corner, and glanced under the bed ; it 
seemed even more credible, for a moment, that 
the floor had opened, than that my visitor had 
been less flesh and blood than I. 

" I think that my ghost stories cannot be suffi- 
ciently remarkable to make you wish for any 
other than this, but if you lack illustration of any 
special point you wish to urge, I could probably 
supply you with any style of ghost or goblin 
that you may need. It occurs to me that the re- 
markable cases of nervous disturbance which you 
have related to me have all occurred in the even- 
ing, as did the incident which I have just de- 
scribed. This visitor stayed with me longer than 
any other of her kind that I have ever received ; 
but usually the visions seen by sunlight have 
been the most distinct and deceptive, and have 
haunted me the most persistently. It was in 
the daytime, too, that I walked beside my own 
double ; and on one bright afternoon, that I lost 
my way, in a country town as familiar to me as 
was Cambridge to your college friend. Luckily, 
I was driving, and not too much frightened to re- 
member that my horse had not lost his wits also. 



30 VISIONS. 

I loosened the reins, and he brought me out 
safely from a very awkward dilemma." 

The previous case presents several interesting 
points. First, the early age at which the hallu- 
cinations began is worthy of notice. Their early 
appearance indicates, probably, some congenital 
cerebral condition, which favored their manifesta- 
tion. If such be the fact, it raises a question as 
to how far the brain, in childhood, is more sus- 
ceptible than in adult life, to subjective impres- 
sions, and consequent hallucination and delusion. 
The screaming, and strange terrors, and fright- 
ened looks and actions, which some children ex- 
hibit, when there is no apparent cause for terror 
or alarm, may sometimes result from cerebral 
processes, which surround them with invisible ob- 
jects of horror and distress. The terrors of such 
unfortunate children deserve the considerate treat- 
ment of practitioners, and the wise and tender 
watchfulness of parents, instead of ridicule and 
punishment. Secondly, another noteworthy cir- 
cumstance is, that the visions of Miss D.'s adult 
life appeared only when mental pain or anxiety, 
added to bodily exhaustion, had prepared the way 
for them ; a hint, that brain fatigue and bodily 
exhaustion favor the cerebral processes, or supply 
the cerebral conditions of subjective sight and 
hearing. A third point of interest is the close 
similarity of what, for want of a better expres- 
sion, may be called her subjective visions to her 



VISIONS. 31 

objective sight. The important influences which 
flow from this will be mentioned elsewhere. A 
fourth point of great physiological interest, and 
one which her own observation led her to empha- 
size, is, that her visions, instead of being, as such 
visions usually are, shadowy and doubtful by day- 
light, were most distinct and deceptive in a clear 
and bright light. Her brain did not require 
shadows, twilight, and darkness, for the produc- 
tion of hallucinations. This is evidence, to a cer- 
tain extent, that the cerebral processes by which 
vision is produced may not only be started in the 
brain itself, but that, when so started, they are 
identical with those set agoing by an objective 
stimulus in the ordinary way. 

The visions of Nicolai of Berlin have been re- 
ferred to, and quoted by psychologists and phys- 
iologists, for nearly a hundred years. Their in- 
trinsic importance, as psychological phenomena, 
is enhanced by the fact, that be was himself the 
subject of them, and that, being a man of careful 
observation and scientific attainments, he atten- 
tively watched their various phases as they oc- 
curred in his own person, endeavored to trace the 
connection between them and his own physical 
condition, and himself recorded the result of his 
observations. His visions were, moreover, re- 
markable for presenting simultaneously false per- 
ceptions of sight and sound. He not only saw 
human beings, but heard them speak. He had, 



32 visions. 

therefore, pseudotia (i/^cMo? and oJs)> as we ^ aa 
pseudopia. The rational view which he took of 
his visions, and his hypothetical explanation of 
them, show him to have been a person consider- 
ably in advance of the age in which he lived. 
They are such admirable illustrations of our sub- 
ject, that his account of them is quoted in full. 

CASE Y. 

Conscious centric or subjective pseudopia and pseudotia in a 
man past middle life ; record of the visions, made by the 
subject of them. 1 

" In the first two months of the year 1791, I 
was much affected in my mind by several inci- 
dents of a very disagreeable nature ; and on the 
24th of February a circumstance occurred which 
irritated me extremely. At ten o'clock in the 
forenoon my wife and another person came to 
console me ; I ■ was in a violent perturbation of 
mind, owing to a series of incidents which had 
altogether wounded my moral feelings, and from 
which I saw no possibility of relief ; when sud- 
denly I observed at the distance of ten paces from 
me a figure, — the figure of a deceased person. 
I pointed at it, and asked my wife whether she 
did not see it. She saw nothing, but Leing much 
alarmed, endeavored to compose me, and sent for 
the physician. The figure remained some seven 

1 A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts, by 
William Nicholson, vol. vi., pp. 166, etc. London, 1803. 



visions. 33 

or eight minutes, and at length I became a little 
more calm ; and as I was extremely exhausted, I 
soon afterwards fell into a troubled kind of slum- 
ber, which lasted for half an hour. The vision 
was ascribed to the great agitation of mind in 
which I had been, and it was supposed I should 
have nothing more to apprehend from that cause ; 
but the violent affection had put my nerves into 
some unnatural state ; from this arose further 
consequences, which require a more detailed de- 
scription. 

" In the afternoon, a little after four o'clock, 
the figiu-e which I had seen in the morning again 
appeared. I was alone when this happened ; a 
circumstance which, as may be easily conceived, 
could not be very agreeable. I went, therefore, 
to the apartment of my wife, to whom I related 
it. But thither also the figure pursued me. 
Sometimes it was present, sometimes it vanished, 
but it was always the same standing figure. A 
little after six o'clock several stalking figures also 
appeared ; but they had no connection with the 
standing figure. I can assign no other reason for 
this apparition than that, though much more com- 
posed in my mind, I had not been able so soon 
entirely to forget the cause of such deep and dis- 
tressing vexation, and had reflected on the conse- 
quences of it, in order, if possible, to avoid them ; 
and that this happened three hours after dinner, 
at the time when digestion just begins. 

" At length I became more composed with re- 
3 



34 visions. 

spect to the disagreeable incident which had given 
rise to the first apparition ; but though I had 
used very excellent medicines, and found myself 
in other respects perfectly well, yet the appari- 
tions did not diminish, but on the contrary rather 
increased in number, and were transformed in the 
most extraordinary manner. 

" After I had recovered from the first impres- 
sion of terror, I never felt myself particularly 
agitated by these apparitions, as I considered 
them to be, what they really were, the extraor- 
dinary consequences of indisposition ; on the con- 
trary, I endeavored as much as possible to preserve 
my composure of mind, that I might remain dis- 
tinctly conscious of what passed within me. I 
observed these phantoms with great accuracy, 
and very often reflected on my previous thoughts, 
with a view to discover some law in the associ- 
ation of ideas, by which exactly these or other 
figures might present themselves to the imagina- 
tion. ... . 

" The figure of the deceased person never ap- 
peared to me after the first dreadful day ; but 
several other figures showed themselves after- 
wards very distinctly; sometimes such as I knew; 
mostly, however, of persons I did not know, and 
amongst those known to me were the semblances 
of both living and deceased persons, but mostly 
the former; and I made the observation that ac- 
quaintance with whom I daily conversed never ap- 
peared to me as phantasms ; it was always such 



visions. 35 

as were at a distance. When these apparitions 
had continued some weeks, and I could regard 
them with the greatest composure, I afterwards 
endeavored, at my own pleasure, to call forth 
phantoms of several acquaintances, whom I for 
that reason represented to my imagination in 
the most lively manner, but in vain. For, how- 
ever accurately I pictured to my mind the figures 
of such persons, I never once could succeed in 
my desire of seeing them externally ; though I 
had some short time before seen them as phan- 
toms, and they had perhaps afterwards unex- 
pectedly presented themselves to me in the same 
manner. The phantasms appeared to me in every 
case involuntarily, as if they had been presented 
externally, like the phenomena in nature, though 
they certainly had their origin internally ; and at 
the same time I was always able to distinguish 
with the greatest precision phantasms from phe- 
nomena. Indeed, I never once erred in this, as 
I was in general perfectly calm and self-collected 
on the occasion. I knew extremely well, when it 
only appeared to me that the door was opened 
and a phantom entered, and when the door really 
was opened and any person came in. 

" It is also to be noted, that these figures ap- 
peared to me at all times, and under the most 
different circumstances, equally distinct and clear, 
whether I was alone or in company, by broad day- 
light equally as in the night-time, in my own as 
well as in my neighbor's house ; yet when I was at 



36 VISIONS. 

another person's house, they were less frequent, 
and when I walked the public street they very 
seldom appeared. When I shut my eyes some- 
times the figures disappeared, sometimes they re- 
mained even after I had closed them. If they 
vanished in the former case, on opening my eyes 
again, nearly the same figures appeared which I 
had seen before. 

" I sometimes conversed with my physician and 
my wife, concerning the phantasms which at the 
time hovered around me ; for in general the forms 
appeared oftener in motion than at rest. They 
did not always continue present ; they frequently 
left me altogether, and again appeared for a short 
or longer space of time, singly or more at once ; 
but, in general, several appeared together. For 
the most part I saw human figures of both sexes ; 
they commonly passed to and fro as if they had 
no connection with each other, like people at a 
fair where all is bustle ; sometimes they appeared 
to have business with one another. Once or twice 
I saw amongst them persons on horseback, and 
dogs and birds ; these figures all appeared to me 
in their natural size, as distinctly as if they had 
existed in real life, with the several tints on the 
uncovered parts of the body, and with all the dif- 
ferent kinds and colors of clothes. But I think, 
however, that the colors were somewhat pale?* 
than they are in nature. 

" None of the figures had any distinguishing 
characteristic ; they were neither terrible, ludi- 



visions. 37 

crous, nor repulsive ; most of them were ordinary 
in their appearance ; some were even agreeable. 

" On the whole, the longer I continued in this 
state, the more did the number of phantasms in- 
crease, and the apparitions became more frequent. 
About four weeks afterwards I began to hear 
them speak ; sometimes the phantasms spoke with 
one another ; but for the most part they addressed 
themselves to me ; these speeches were in general 
short, andnever contained anything disagreeable. 
Intelligent and respected friends often appeared 
to me, who endeavored to console me in my grief, 
which still left deep traces on my mind. This 
speaking I heard most frequently when I was 
alone ; though I sometimes heard it in company, 
intermixed with the conversation of real persons ; 
frequently in single phrases only, but sometimes 
even in connected discourse." .... 

With the hope of obtaining relief M. Nicolai 
determined to lose blood. The result is thus de- 
scribed : — 

" I was alone with the surgeon, but during the 
operation the room swarmed with human forms 
of every description, which crowded fast one on 
another ; this continued till half past four o'clock, 
exactly the time when the digestion commences. 
I then observed that the figures began to move 
more slowly ; soon afterwards the colors became 
gradually paler ; every seven minutes they lost 
more and more of their intensity, without any al- 
teration in the distinct figure of the apparitions. 



38 visions. 

At about half past six o'clock all the figures were 
entirely white, and moved very little ; yet the 
forms appeared perfectly distinct ; by degrees 
they became visibly less plain, without decreasing 
in number, as had often formerly been the case. 
The figures did not move off, neither did they 
vanish, which also had usually happened on other 
occasions. In this instance they dissolved imme- 
diately into air ; of some even whole pieces re- 
mained for a length of time, which also by de- 
grees were lost to the eye. At about eight o'clock 
there did not remain a vestige of any of them, 
and I have never since experienced any appear- 
ance of the same kind." 

Besides this account of his own experience, M. 
Nicolai reports the case of his friend, Moses Men- 
delsohn, who contracted a malady, after intense 
application to study, in which he heard, at night, 
a stentorian voice repeat much that had been 
spoken to him during the day. Here the ear, not 
the eye, was disturbed so as to report inaccurately. 

The comments which are naturally suggested 
by this extraordinary account, and the probable 
explanation of the visions described, will be given 
farther on, in connection . with the discussion of 
the physiological conditions of pseudopia. The 
case which immediately follows resembles this in 
being an instance of the abnormal action of two 
senses simultaneously. 



visions. 39 

CASE VI. 

Conscious centric or subjective pseudopia and pseudotia ; in a 
man over eighty years of age, associated with disease of the 
brain, which finally proved fatal. 

Mr. A., a man of parts and education, was a 
retired merchant. Possessed of an ample fortune, 
he devoted more time to intellectual and aesthetic 
pursuits than to business. He was particularly- 
fond of music, was familiar with the works of the 
great composers, and heard with delight the ar- 
tists who interpreted them. During a long life, 
he was a frequent attendant at operas and con- 
certs where the best music was produced. Early 
in his career he occasionally visited Europe, and 
when he did so, he improved the opportunities 
which his visit afforded, of indulging his mu- 
sical taste more liberally than he could do in this 
country. This fact of his possessing a fine mu- 
sical taste, and of his indulging and cultivat- 
ing it, is emphasized in this connection, in conse- 
quence of its possible or probable relation to the 
phenomena which will be related presently. It 
should be added, that he was a man of more than 
ordinary intellectual ability, and was endowed 
with the rare gift of good common sense. Few 
persons could be found less likely than he to be 
led astray by their imagination or by supersti- 
tion. Armed with an active temperament, good 
habits, and a strong physical organization, he en- 
joyed good health till after the age of eighty. He 



40 VISIONS. 

then suffered for two or three years from a cere- 
bral malady, which at length terminated fatally. 
A moderate degree of deafness, persistent tinni- 
tus aurium, occasional vertigo, and slight loss of 
memory, were the prominent symptoms of his 
condition for a year or two after he became an oc- 
togenarian. Towards the close of life, incoher- 
ence, delirium, stupor, and the like, indicated with 
sufficient certainty the presence of severe cere- 
bral disease. Its precise character, however, was 
not ascertained by a post-mortem examination. 

When about eighty years of age, and when suf- 
fering from the deafness, tinnitus aurium, etc., 
just alluded to, he called at my house early one 
morning, and gave me the following account of 
an extraordinary occurrence that had happened to 
hirn the previous night. He prefaced his story 
with the remark : " I have come to ask you, 
doctor, if the time has arrived for me to step out 
of this world." In reply to what he meant by 
such a question, he said that he had witnessed a 
most singular affair, during the previous night, of 
which he could give no adequate explanation, and 
which he thought might very likely be the fore- 
runner of serious trouble in his brain. The ac- 
count is given, as nearly as. I can remember it, 
in his own language, with the exception of chang- 
ing the first to the third person. 

He had retired, on the night referred to, at his 
usual hour, and in his usual health. Nothing had 
occurred for the day previous, or for several days 



VISIONS. 41 

previous, to disturb him in any way so far as he 
could recollect. He had partaken of his usual 
diet, and followed his customary mode of life. 
Soon after retiring he fell asleep, and slept well 
till about two A. M., when he was awakened by 
the sound of music, which seemed to come from 
the street near his house. Thinking a serenade 
was going on, he got up to ascertain where it was, 
but discovered nothing. The sound ceased when 
he arose. On returning to bed, he heard the sound 
of music again, and was at the same time surprised 
by the appearance of three persons, standing near 
each other in his chamber, opposite the foot of his 
bed. It was his habit to sleep with the gas-light 
burning feebly, near the head of his bed. He 
turned the gas on to its full power, and inspected 
the intruders. They appeared to be musicians, 
who were humming and singing, as if in prepara- 
tion for a musical performance. He rang a bell, 
which summoned his man servant. John soon ar- 
rived and was ordered to put the strangers out. 
" There is nobody here, sir," was John's reply to 
the order. For a moment Mr. A. was not only 
amazed, but alarmed. " What ! " he exclaimed, 
u do you see no one there?" "No one," said John. 
" Go where those chairs are, and move them," was 
Mr. A.'s next direction. John did so. The stran- 
gers stepped aside, but did not go out. By this 
time Mr. A. had gathered his wits about him, and 
was satisfied that he was the victim of a hallucina- 
tion ; and he determined to observe its phenomena 



42 visions. 

carefully. Accordingly, he bade his servant de- 
part, and prepared to watch his visitors. But they 
were so life-like and human, that he was again 
staggered, and recalling John, told him to go for 
the housekeeper. She soon came, and on being 
interrogated, confirmed John's statements, that 
there were no strangers in the chamber, and no 
sounds to be heard. Convinced by the testimony 
of two witnesses, Mr. A. yielded to the decision 
of his reason, and again resolved to go on with 
the investigation of the strange phenomena. The 
musicians had now resumed their position, near 
the window and opposite the foot of the bed. Mr. 
A. turned the light of the gas full upon them. He 
looked at his watch, which marked the hour of 
half past two. He then arranged his pillows, so 
as to sit almost upright in bed, and waited for 
the next scene of the play. He was able to note 
the size, form, dress, and faces, of the performers. 
One was a large man, who bore some resemblance 
to Brignoli. The two others were of less size, and 
shorter stature than their companion. All were 
habited in dress coats, with white waistcoats, and 
wore white cravats and white gloves. After a 
little time, spent in coughing and clearing their 
throats, they began to sing. They sang at first 
a few simple airs, " Sweet Home " among others. 
They then attempted more difficult music, and 
gave selections from Beethoven and Mozart. Be- 
tween the pieces, they chatted with each other in a 
foreign language, which Mr. A. took to be Italian, 



VISIONS. 43 

but they did not address him. Occasionally they 
changed their position, turned in various directions, 
and part of the time sat down. Mr. A. said the 
singing was excellent ; he had rarely heard better. 
After the first feeling of surprise and amazement 
had passed away, he enjoyed the music exceed- 
ingly. The performance continued in this way 
for some time, when it suddenly came to an end. 
The singing ceased, and the singers vanished. He 
looked at his watch, and found that the time was 
four o'clock. The concert in his brain had lasted 
nearly an hour and a half, almost the length of 
an ordinary concert. He reflected for a while 
upon this strange occurrence, but not being able 
to arrive at any satisfactory explanation of it, he 
turned his gas down and went to sleep. The next 
morning he called at my office, as previously 
stated, to ascertain if possible what pranks his 
brain had been playing, and if he should regard 
them as a warning of his approaching departure. 

Such was Mr. A.'s account of his singular vis- 
ion. It occurred to me as possible that the whole 
might be a vivid dream, which had produced such 
an intense and profound impression as to deceive 
him with regard to its character. In order to as- 
certain whether such was the case or not, the two 
servants, to whom he referred in his report of his 
night's experience, were asked if Mr. A. had been 
ill, or if anything unusual had taken place on the 
night in question. The reply of each was, sub- 
stantially, that he had only been a little out of his 



44 visions. 

head, and nothing more, at that time, because he 
had called them up in the middle of the night, 
and told them to put some persons out of his 
room, when, except himself, no one was there. 
Evidently the vision was more than an ordinary 
dream. 

In one respect this case is almost unique. Like 
that of M. Nicolai of Berlin, the only similar one 
that I know of, it is an instance of a hallucina- 
tion involving the abnormal action of two senses, 
the sense of sight and the sense of hearing, si- 
multaneously. It is not unusual for persons whose 
brains have been disturbed by fever, alcohol, cere- 
bral disease, intense excitement, or overpowering 
emotion, to hear strange sounds, or see strange 
sights. This is particularly true of the ear. 
Noises that are altogether subjective, and of the 
greatest variety, such as the ringing of bells, hiss- 
ing of steam, cries of animals, screams of children, 
chirping of locusts, and other sounds, including 
occasionally human voices, are so often perceived, 
and referred to the ear, that they are recognized 
as forming a distinct group of symptoms, called 
tinnitus aurium. In like manner, but less often, 
objects, such as trees, animals, and human forms, 
sometimes vague and sometimes distinct, have 
been seen by a variety of persons and under va- 
rious conditions ; but it is very unusual for two 
senses to be deceived at the same time ; for the 
eye and the ear of a person to be both at fault, 
at the same moment, under the same circum- 



visions. 45 

stances, and with regard to the same objects. 
Such, however, was the fact in this case, and that 
of M. Nicolai, and it is this which gives to these 
cases a peculiar psychological and physiological 
interest. Fortunately, modern physiology enables 
us to form some notion, even if it be an imperfect 
one, of how such phenomena are produced. We 
are no longer obliged to conceal our ignorance, by 
calling them imaginary, or denying their occur- 
rence. Whatever physiological explanation may 
be offered of these, and other hallucinations, will 
be found in another part of this paper. 

The visions, which are recorded in the next and 
last case, are somewhat less definite and distinct 
than those previously described. It presents, how- 
ever, one element or factor of great physiological 
significance, which none of the other cases exhibit; 
and that is, the presumed and apparent influence 
of the will in producing pseudopia. 

CASE VII. 

Conscious centric or subjective pseudopia ; influence of volition 
upon its production ; phenomena recorded by the subject of 
them. 

The following case deserves especial attention, 
not only on account of its intrinsic value, but be- 
cause the subject of it, Mr. E., who is an accom- 
plished scholar, a careful observer, and a distin- 
guished scientist, has drawn up the present report 



46 visions. 

of it himself. Consequently, we have here, as in 
the case of M. Nicolai, of Berlin, observations 
made by a careful observer and trained thinker 
upon himself, of the phenomena of cerebral vis- 
ion. For the graphic and interesting account 
of them, which the following letter contains, the 
writer of the present essay is in^bted to Mr. E. 
himself : — 

My dear Dr. Clarke, — I have no other objections 
to granting your request, than that my memory may 
fail me as to details and dates. 

In my childhood I was much tormented by faces ap- 
pearing to me as soon as I closed my eyes in bed. Up 
to the age of fifteen, I was subject to vivid dreams and 
occasional walking in sleep. I mention these circum- 
stances, because they throw light on the character of my 
nervous system. 

In my junior year in college (my age was twenty -four 
in January), I not only kept up my undergraduate 
studies, but gave several hours a day to other mathe- 
matics, and read much in preparing and writing Bow- 
doin Essays. My vacations were also spent in mathe- 
matical work. 

In the first term of the senior year, I began to suffer 
the penalties for this overwork. Sleeplessness at night, 
impulses by day to eccentric freaks, and the ringing 
of nonsense and profanity in my ears, were the most 
troublesome symptoms ; these, however, disappeared 
after entire rest from mental labor for a few weeks, in 
October and November, 1842; while the less trouble- 
some symptoms of visions, which began about that time, 
continued, I think, about two years. They were usually 



VISIONS. 47 

beautiful and pleasant, so that I was tempted to imi- 
tate Goethe, and try whether I could produce them at 
will. I was particularly fond of statuary ; and after a 
few trials succeeded in producing visions of statues, by 
simply fixing my imagination strongly enough upon the 
memory of what I had seen, or upon what occurred to 
me as a good subject for a group. I repeated the ex- 
periment, however, but few times, fearing it might lead 
to some injurious result. 

The spontaneous visions could generally be ascribed 
to some unusual fatigue or excitement. Their form I 
could also, usually, account for from recent visits to 
paintings, statuary, or gardens ; but sometimes their 
form seemed to have been suggested by something long 
past. One afternoon I stood with closed eyes in the 
chapel, in University Hall, and was startled by the ap- 
pearance of a beautiful young face, in a cloud of light. I 
opened my eyes, in order to disperse the vision. To my 
surprise the vision remained several seconds, although 
the sun was shining full upon the wall, by the side of the 
pulpit, under which (in an imaginary recess, apparently 
cutting off Dr. Ware's legs above the knees) this golden- 
haired youth showed himself. The features bore a de- 
cided likeness to Miss Sully's copy of Rembrandt's Peas- 
ant Boy, which I admired very much, but had only seen 
once, and that some months before the vision. 

One of the last visions which I had was the most 
troublesome. In May, 1844, I was present at a colla- 
tion, where long tables were adorned with large bouquets. 
The next evening I was at a Sunday-school meeting 
at the Berry .Street church, Boston, and as I came out 
was introduced to a lady, and requested to escort her to 
Old Cambridge. She proved to be rather taciturn, and 



48 VISIONS. 

as I was rather tired I finally grew sleepy ; but was 
suddenly aroused, as we walked past the end of Inman 
Street, Cambridgeport, by seeing a large bouquet, in a 
faint cloud of light, spring out of the top of a post, on 
the edge of a sidewalk. From that point until I passed 
what is now the end of Ellery Street, every post in suc- 
cession sprouted in a similar manner, as I approached 
within about ten feet of it. I did not dare tell my com- 
panion, but tried to talk and to draw her out to speak 
of other things. In nearly every bouquet I saw a 
flower which I did not remember ever to have seen, 
. but which may have been in some bouquet the previous 
evening ; I have since recognized it as cobea. 

From Ellery to C ,y icy Street all went well except 
the taciturnity of the iady ; but at about that point, I 
was unpleasantly surprised by the sudden disappearance 
of all fences, trees, and houses. We were on a bound- 
less desert, a level plain of sand below us, a dull 
cloudy sky above, nothing else visible, except two Lom- 
bardy poplars, near together in the extreme distance in 
front. I managed to allow my companion unconsciously 
to be my guide to her house ; we went past the colleges, 
past " the spire " and " the tower," under the Washing- 
ton Elm ; still I saw nothing but the desert and the two 
distant poplars. At length she paused, withdrew her 
hand from my arm, and took hold of some invisible 
thing before her. The latch of the gate clicked; in- 
stantly the two poplars rushed towards us, and sank 
into the ground at our feet ; and then, to my inexpres- 
sible relief, all things took on their right appearance. I 
bade the lady good-night, and as soon as she had closed 
the door I started and ran at full speed to Divinity 
Hall, fearing lest some new vision might prevent mj 
finding the way. 



visions. 49 

There seem to me three ways in which my optic 
nerve has given me the sense of distinct vision. First, 
by the normal method of light entering through the 
lenses. Secondly, by a somewhat abnormal way, the 
will holding imagination or memory to one image, until 
the action of that mental image has become abnormally 
great, and like the action of light. Thirdly, by a truly 
abnormal nervous excitation, spontaneously producing 
sensations, those sensations receiving form, or being de- 
termined into form, by indistinct, or, rather, unconscious 
memories or imaginations. 

Very respectfully and truly yours. 

j" r> . 
The visions which are repu „ed in this case are 

not so distinct as those described in the other cases 

of the present series. It is also to be noticed, 

that each separate hallucination or vision of Mr. 

C. was only momentary in its appearance, and 

that the figures, faces, and bouquets were more or 

less shadow} 7 . But if, in these respects, this case 

is an imperfect illustration of subjective cerebral 

vision, the imperfection is more than compensated 

by the fact, that it presents a point of peculiar 

physiological interest, which none of the other 

cases exhibit, and which has rarely been observed, 

or, at least, rarely reported. This is the power 

or ability, which Mr. E. discovered in himself, of 

producing visions, that is, of seeing objects like 

statues and pictures, by an act of volition, and 

without the aid of any objective reality. The 

important bearing of such a brain power, if it 



50 VISIONS. 

exists, upon the physiology of cerebral vision, and 
the explanation which it affords of many curious 
and strange phenomena that have hitherto been 
regarded as purely psychological or imaginary, are 
apparent. It will be discussed more at length 
elsewhere. Two other points, of less physiolog- 
ical interest than the one just mentioned, but 
still of great value, are the same as two empha- 
sized by Miss D. : one is the proclivity which Mr. 
E.'s brain exhibited in early life to visions, as if 
it were congenitally predisposed to them ; and 
the other is the influence which he had observed, 
that physical exhaustion, united with mental fa- 
tigue, exerted as a factor in the production of 
spectres. His explanation of the manner in 
which he supposed his optic apparatus gave him 
the sense of distinct vision, besides the ordinary 
method of light entering through the lenses of 
the eye, is ingenious and physiologically possible. 
It will be referred to again. 

Before attempting any explanation of the visual 
phenomena which have been described, or mak- 
ing any practical application to pathology, thera- 
peutics, metaphysics, or popular beliefs of the in- 
ferences which may be drawn from them, it is 
important to direct the attention of the reader to 
the processes and machinery of normal vision, or 
orthopia. When these are known and correctly 
interpreted, it will not be difficult to frame a 
satisfactory explanation of the aberrations from 



VISIONS. 51 

orthopia, which the previous cases present. We 
shall then, moreover, be prepared to see what ser- 
vice this knowledge, supplemented and interpreted 
by clinical observation, can render to practical 
medicine, and possibly to metaphysics, as well as 
to see how much light it may throw upon what 
has been called mysterious and supernatural in 
well authenticated and trustworthy instances of 
ghostly apparitions, and spirit manifestations. If 
the modicum of truth, hidden by the ignorance, 
superstition, and charlatanism which surround 
such occurrences, could be disinterred from its en- 
vironment, a real service would be rendered to 
humanity. For where truth and error are united, 
if the truth can be discovered, error can be safely 
left to itself. Nothing dies so quickly as error 
and falsehood, when there is no truth to animate 
them. 

It is a common, but erroneous, notion that we 
see with our eyes, and hear with our ears. It is 
true that these organ* a.e indispensable to normal 
seeing and hearing, but it is also true, and a fact 
of great importance, that they are only conduct- 
ors of the vibrations, called light and sound, to 
the delicate cerebral structures of the intracranial 
apparatus, which transform such vibrations into 
perceptions of sight and hearing ; that is, trans- 
form them so that we see and hear. It is the 
brain, and not the eye or the ear, by which we 
see and hear. 

This will be made apparent by tracing the vi- 



52 VISIONS. 

brations of light from a sensible object, through 
the visual apparatus, to the gray matter of the 
cerebral hemispheres, where they become con- 
scious and ideated vision. In order to do this, we 
should have a distinct notion of the character of 
the optical apparatus which conducts light to the 
brain ; that is, we should acquire a clear idea of 
the road over which luminous vibrations travel, 
and of the functions of each part of the apparatus 
engaged in such delicate operations. 

For our present purpose, the apparatus of hu- 
man vision may be described as a mechanism, con- 
sisting of five organs, or sets of organs, which are 
closely connected, and in intimate communication 
with each other. They are : (1) the eye, with the 
iris, lenses, retina and others structures, which 
belong to it ; (2) the tubercula quadrigemina and 
associated nerves ; (3) the cerebral centres of vis- 
ion in the hemispheres, probably the angular 
gyri ; (4) the gray matter of the frontal convolu- 
tions ; and (5) the connecting nerves of commu- 
nication. 

Each portion of this complicated and delicate 
apparatus performs a special function. To each 
one is assigned its own part or duty, in the labor 
of conveying such intelligence as light can report 
from the external world to the brain. Each one 
is supposed to do its own part or duty honestly ; 
that is, never to send a report to a station above 
which it has not received from below ; and in the 
vast majority of cases, such is the fact. The 



visions. 53 

senses, and especially the sense of vision, rarely 
deceive any one. They are generally trusted im- 
plicitly, because they are almost always trustwor- 
thy. Nevertheless, modified by disease, disturbed 
by drugs, or influenced by the brain itself, they 
sometimes play false, manufacture news, like poli- 
ticians and speculators, and send untrustworthy 
reports to headquarters. 

Light is the stimulus or force which, like the 
steam that moves an engine, sets the visual ma- 
chinery in motion. Without light, the apparatus 
in the normal condition of the system cannot 
work; but, as will be shown further on, and as 
the preceding cases of pseudopia indicate, there 
are abnormal conditions of the brain which are 
capable of making the apparatus of vision per- 
form its function without the agency of light. 
When this occurs, the natural results are mental 
confusion, disorder, and uncertainty. 

What light is in its essence we do not know. 
Whether the theory of emission, as held by the 
ancients and accepted by Newton, or that of un- 
dulation, to which physicists of the present time 
incline, or some other theory, be true, it is not im- 
portant for the purposes of the present essay to 
ascertain. It is enough to know that light is 
either a form of motion, or produces in some 
setherial medium motion of almost inconceivable 
rapidity. The forms of motion which light as- 
sumes, or the vibrations by which it is manifested, 
are recognized by the cells of the retina of the 



54 visions. 

eye, which themselves vibrate in response to it. 
Some idea of the delicacy of the retinal machinery 
of vision, and of the corresponding delicacy of 
the whole intracranial machinery, may be formed 
by striving to picture to ourselves the minute- 
ness of the wave-lengths of light to which the ret- 
ina is susceptible. Fresnel states * that the na- 
ture of colors is determined by the number of 
vibrations which each color makes, just as differ- 
ent sounds are produced by the varying number of 
sonorous waves. Seven hundred and twenty-eight 
millions of millions of undulations a second pro- 
duce what we call the violet ray ; and more than 
four hundred and ninety-six millions of millions 
produce the red ray. The other rays are produced 
by other numbers of undulations. In like manner, 
differences of form and size, the varying expres- 
sions of the human countenance, the constantly 
changing aspects of nature, sunsets and storms, 
the splendor of landscapes, and the majesty of 
mountains and of the ocean, and all the wonderful 
beauty, which the faculty of vision comprehends, 
are telegraphed to the eye by vibrations, which 
differ from each other by millions in a second. 
This rapidity of movement and minuteness of 
difference is almost inconceivable. Yet this ra- 
pidity and minuteness, of which the mind fails to 
form an adequate notion, the retina of the eye 
appreciates, discriminates, and transmits to the 

1 Traits JEl^mentaire de Physique Experimentaie et Appliqu€e, 
par A. Ganot. Paris. 13me ed., p. 560. 



visions. 55 

tubercula quadrigemina, and these to other parts 
of the brain. 

In the statement which has just been made, 
that light is the agent which ordinarily produces 
the phenomena of vision, the expression ordina- 
rily was used designedly. For, while it is true 
that such is the fact, it is also true, as has been 
already stated, that the phenomena of vision may 
be produced without the agency of light, and with- 
out the presence of extra-cranial objects. Such 
instances are rare, but that they may and do oc- 
cur, and that they are susceptible of a physiolog- 
ical explanation, are matters of gueat interest and 
practical importance. 

Such, without entering into details, is the ap- 
paratus of human vision ; and such the agent, 
whose delicate undulations set it in motion and 
enable it to be the most efficient, the most im- 
portant, and the most delightful means of commu- 
nication between the brain and the outer world 
of any which the organization possesses. We 
owe to anatomy the discovery and demonstration 
of this apparatus, and of the tissues, fibres, cells, 
and granules, which enter into its composition, 
and out of which all its secret movements are 
constructed. We owe to physics our knowledge 
of the marvellous force to which it responds ; and 
to physiology the investigation and discovery of 
the special function in the process of vision which 
is appropriated to each of its parts. Our next 
step is to point out these special functions, and 



56 visions. 

the separate parts of the apparatus, which are 
charged with their performance. It has already 
been stated that each part of the visual apparatus 
has its own work to do, and that intelligent vis- 
ion results from the harmonious cooperation of 
the whole. 

It is important to bear in mind that vision, 
which on account of its familiarity seems to be 
a simple matter, is in reality a complex process. 
It is called the sense of sight, but it is much more 
than sensation. In connection with light, it em- 
ploys the most delicate operations known to phys- 
ics ; and in connection with the brain, the most 
subtle operations known to metaphysics. By a 
careful analysis it may be separated into its ele- 
ments. When this is done, when its component 
parts are discriminated from each other, as clearly 
as the various parts of the visual apparatus have 
been discerned and dissected out by anatomy, it 
will be a comparatively easy task to assign each 
part, or step in the visual process, to its appropri- 
ate organ in the visual apparatus. The compli- 
cated structure of the apparatus corresponds to 
the complicated character of the process. Each 
stage of the latter is a special function of some 
organ of the former. 

Let us now endeavor to analyze this process 
and discover its elements. If a drop of corrosive 
acid is put upon the foot of a frog, the animal in- 
stantly withdraws its foot. The observer notices 
that its foot has been burnt by the acid, and justly 



visions. 57 

infers that the frog felt a sensation of pain, and 
consequently tried to remove its foot from the 
source of harm. This is an instance of the sim- 
plest form of sensation. Suppose, in another frog, 
the sciatic nerve were completely severed, and 
after the section a drop of the same acid were 
put on the foot of the limb, of which the nerve 
had been divided. The tissues would be burnt by 
the acid as before, but the animal would not with- 
draw its foot. In the first experiment pain was 
felt ; there was sensation. In the second experi- 
ment no pain was felt ; there was no sensation. 
But the acid acted in the same way in each case. 
The foot of the frog with the divided nerve and 
the foot of the frog with the undivided nerve were 
both alike burnt. Evidently the foot did not feel ; 
sensation was not there, though injury was. By 
this example we learn that the process of sensa- 
tion includes at least three elements ; namely, lo- 
cal irritation, communication of the fact of such 
irritation to a nerve centre, and consciousness, 
which in this case was spinal consciousness. 

Let us borrow another experiment from the 
physiologists. If a frog is suspended by its two 
anterior extremities, and a drop of acid is placed 
on the foot of one of its free, posterior extremities, 
the animal will withdraw its foot, rub its free ex- 
tremities together, shut its eyes (a frog's expres- 
sion of distress), make an effort to use its anterior 
extremities for relief, and endeavor in every way 
\o get rid of the annoyance. If another frog, of 



58 visions. 

which the spinal cord has been severed at a point 
above the junction of the nerves from the hind 
legs with the cord, is suspended in the same way 
as the former animal, and if, when thus suspended, 
a drop of acid is put as before on one of its feet, 
it will withdraw its foot, rub its two posterior ex- 
tremities together, in order to push off the irritat- 
ing cause, and try in every way, with the poste- 
rior half of its body, to obtain relief, as was the 
case with the frog in the previous experiment; 
but, unlike the animal of the previous experiment, 
it will not close its eyes, struggle with its fore 
legs, or make any effort with the anterior part of 
its body, above the point of section of the cord. 
Evidently, the section of the cord has eliminated 
from the process of sensation, in the frog of the 
second experiment, an element which existed in 
the frog of the first experiment. The first animal 
endeavored, with his whole body, to get rid of 
the irritation ; the second animal made the same 
effort, for the same purpose, with only the poste- 
rior half of its body. In the second experiment, 
the anterior half did not know what was going on 
in the posterior half. Cerebral consciousness of 
disturbance did not exist. In the uninjured frog 
cerebral consciousness 1 of irritation existed, and 
was an element in the animal's sensation. This 
experiment discloses an element in the process of 

1 Consciousness is not used here in its metaphysical sense, bat 
only to discriminate cerebral sensation in the frog from spinal 
sensation. Some persons might deny the existence of any met- 
aphysical consciousness. 



VISIONS. 59 

sensation, additional to those previously ascer- 
tained. Besides local irritation, intercommunica- 
tion, and spinal consciousness, there is cerebral 
consciousness. 

This does not exhaust the matter. Let us com- 
pare the condition of a frog, of which the spinal 
cord is sound, and of which all its nerves, running 
from the centre to the periphery, are uninjured, 
but which has been deprived of its cerebral hem- 
ispheres, with a perfectly sound animal. Such a 
frog will hop away, if disturbed ; withdraw its 
foot, if the latter is irritated ; croak cheerfully, if 
its back is gently stroked, and avoid obstacles in 
the way of its leap. In all these respects, it will 
act and appear like a sound frog. Yet there is 
a remarkable difference between it and a sound 
one. What this difference is, let Dr. Ferrier state : 
" The brainless frog, unless disturbed by any form 
of peripherical stimulus, will sit forever quiet in 
the same spot and become converted into a mum- 
my. All spontaneous action is annihilated. Its 
past experience has been blotted out, and it ex- 
hibits no fear in circumstances which otherwise 
would cause it to retire or flee from danger. It 
will sit quite still if the hand be put forth cau- 
tiously to seize it, but will retreat if a brusque 
movement is made close to its eyes. Surrounded 
by plenty it will die of starvation ; but, unlike 
Tantalus, it has no psychical suffering, no de- 
sire and no will to supply its physical wants." 1 

1 The Functions of the Brain, by David Ferrier, M. D., 
F. R. S., Am. ed., p. 35. 



60 VISIONS. 

By this experiment another element, ideation, is 
taken away from the process of sensation. Voli- 
tion, the final cause of all sensation, is also re- 
moved. 

The previous analysis shows that sensation, in 
its common acceptation, comprehends five distinct 
elements : namely, local impression, communica- 
tion, spinal consciousness, cerebral consciousness, 
and ideation ; all of which are the necessary an- 
tecedents of volition. 

The process which has just been described, and 
which is familiar to physiologists as conscious 
and unconscious reflex action, is the type of the 
most complex, as well as of the simplest, sensa- 
tions. It is the only mode of activity which 
science can discern, either in the spinal cord or 
the brain. Those who do not believe in the free- 
dom of the will regard volition as the culmina- 
tion and subtlest form of reflex action ; and those 
who take an opposite view admit that volition can 
be exertgd only through the machinery of reflex 
action. 

Sight is sensation. Yet it is a much more com- 
plicated process than the one just described ;*and, 
consequently, requires for its accomplishment a 
much more complicated apparatus than answers 
for that ; still it is essentially the same, and can 
be reduced to the same elements. In the process 
of visual sensation, there are the local impression 
of light on the eye, corresponding to the local in- 
jury of the frog's foot ; communication, or tel- 



VISIONS. 61 

egraphing, by means of the optic nerve, to the 
tubercula quadrigemina, like that from the frog's 
foot to its spine ; perception of the communica- 
tion, or telegram, by the tubercula quadrigemina, 
corresponding to the spinal consciousness of the 
frog; telegraphing of the perception by the tu- 
bercula quadrigemina to a higher centre, the an- 
gular gyrus ; and communication from the latter 
to the frontal convolutions, and consequent idea- 
tion. The two last centres and their functions, 
which are largely developed and distinctly differ- 
entiated in man, correspond to the cerebral hem- 
ispheres and cerebral consciousness of the frog. 

This simple enumeration of the different stages 
in the process of vision is not sufficient for our 
purpose. It is necessary to examine the process 
more in detail ; and it will contribute both to 
convenience and clearness of statement, to do this 
by describing each of its steps or stages as a dis- 
tinct function of a distinct part of the visual ap- 
paratus ; that is, to point out the part which is 
performed in the process of vision by the eye, 
the tubercula quadrigemina, the centres of vision 
in the hemispheres, the frontal convolutions, and 
the connecting nerve trunks. 

The function of the eye naturally demands at- 
tention first. This organ receives the impression 
of the waves of light through the iris, and, stim- 
ulated by them, is enabled to ascertain approx- 
imately the color and varying shades of color, 
the form, outline, size, solidity, position, distance, 



62 VISIONS. 

direction, and movement of objects. Dr. Dalton 
says : " Of all the properties and functions be- 
longing to the different structures of the eyeball 
the most peculiar and characteristic is the special 
sensibility of the retina. This sensibility is such 
that the retina appreciates both the intensity and 
the quality of the light — that is to say, its color 
and the different shades which this color may pre- 
sent. On account of the form, also, in which the 
retina is constructed, namely, that of a spheroidal 
membranous bag, with an opening in front, it be- 
comes capable of appreciating the direction from 
which the rays of light have come, and, of course, 
the situation of the luminous body, and of its dif- 
ferent parts. For the rays which enter through the 
pupil from below can reach the retina only at its 
upper part, while those which come in from above 
can reach it only at its lower part ; so that in both 
instances the rays strike the sensitive surface per- 
pendicularly, and thus convey the impression of 
their direction from above or below." x Form and 
outline are ascertained by means of the crystal- 
line lens, which, aided by the other refracting and 
transparent media of the eyeball* produce a suffi- 
cient convergence of the luminous rays to accom- 
plish this object. 

" Our impressions," says the eminent physiol- 
ogist just quoted, " of distance and solidity, in 
viewing external objects, are produced mainly by 

1 A Treatise on Human Physiology, by John C. Dalton, Jr., 
M. D., 3ded., p. 494. 



visions.' 63 

the combined action of the two eyt i*or, as the 
eyes are seated a certain distance apart from each 
other in the head, when they are both directed 
toward the same object their axes meet at the 
point of sight, and form a certain angle with each 
other ; and this angle varies with the distance of 
the object. Thus, when the object is within a short 
distance, the axes of the two eyes will necessarily 
be very convergent, and the angle which they 
form with each other a large one ; but for remote 
objects, the visual axes will become more nearly 
parallel, and their angle consequently smaller. 
It is on this account that we can always distin- 
guish whether any person at a short distance is 
looking at us, or at some other object in our di- 
rection ; since we instinctively appreciate from 
the appearance of the eyes, whether their visual 
axes meet at the level of our own face." l Ac- 
cording to the same author, " the combined action 
of the two eyes is also very valuable for near ob- 
jects, in giving us an idea of solidity or projec- 
tion. For, within a certain distance, the visual 
axes when directed together at a solid object are 
so convergent that the two eyes do not receive the 
same image." The ability to accommodate it- 
self to different distances, which the eye possesses 
within certain limits, and which is accomplished 
by means of an antero-posterior movement of the 
crystalline lens, enables it to measure, approxi- 
mately, the distance of objects. The movement 
1 Dalton, op. cit., pp. 501, 502. 



64 visions. 

of the eyeball in various directions, by which it 
follows a moving object, as a bird flying or a man 
walking, gives to it the power of recognizing and 
estimating motion. The sensibility and response 
of the retina to the almost inconceivable velocity 
of the waves of light, by which that membrane 
recognizes color and varying shades of color, has 
already been noticed. These, and similar impor- 
tant data of the motion, direction, distance, and 
character of external bodies, are all collected and 
registered by the eye, and reported through the 
optic nerve to the tubercula quadrigemina and 
the brain. In the performance of this duty the 
eye accomplishes a purely automatic or mechan- 
ical task, in which consciousness takes no part, 
and over which volition has no control. The eye 
receives and measures the impressions made upon 
it by light, as thermometers, barometers, and rain- 
gauges measure and register meteorological phe- 
nomena. 

This then is the function of the eye, to collect 
the data out of which vision is constructed, but 
not to perform the office or be charged with the 
responsibility of sight. 

Two questions now present themselves : What 
is sent through the optic nerve? and how is it 
sent? The ancients supposed that minute and 
invisible images were thrown off by sensible ob- 
jects, which entered the eye and passed thence to 
the brain, where they were perceived. Philoso- 
phers of later times substituted for this fanciful 






visions. 65 

theory an equally fanciful and unintelligible one, 
that ideas, which were supposed to be exact copies 
of objects, were the media by which the mind 
takes cognizance of the external world. When 
it was ascertained that images of objects were 
formed by luminous rays on the retina, as in a 
mirror, the theory of the intervention of ideas 
between the outer world and the brain was dis- 
carded, and it was believed that the retinal image 
was in some mysterious way transmitted to the 
brain. The latter conception prevails somewhat 
at the present time, though how the feat is ac- 
complished no one pretends to guess. None of 
these theories are true. " The formation of an 
image on the retina is the precursor of a visual 
sensation ; but this image is not transmitted to 
the brain. The oxidation of a volatile substance is 
the precursor to an olfactory sensation ; but this 
oxidation is not transmitted to the brain. The 
destruction of tissue, which is the precursor of a 
sensation of a burn, is not transmitted to the 
brain. That which is in each case transmitted 
is the excited sensation." 1 When a telegraphic 
operator at station A sends a message to another 
station, B, which is connected with A by a wire, 
he sends no words, or hieroglyphics, or represen- 
tations over the wire, but employs the current 
of electricity with which the wire is charged, to 
operate an apparatus for writing, or making sig- 

1 The Physiology of Common Life, by G. H. Lewes, Am. ed. 
vol. ii., p. 277. 



66 VISIONS. 

nals of some sort at B ; the characters produced 
by the apparatus at B, at the will of the operator 
at A, are deciphered at B, and thus a message 
is sent from A to B. The operator at A ob- 
serves a military parade, notes the number, ap- 
pearance, weapons, officers, and other character- 
istics of the battalion, takes the whole picture 
into his mind, out of which he constructs a re- 
port, which is presented at B by means of the 
apparatus in that station. The operator at B re- 
constructs from this report the picture which the 
reporter at A had formed, and so acquires an ac- 
curate notion of the parade. In like manner the 
eye takes in the picture — receives a photographic 
impression — of a military parade, and employs the 
neurility of the optic nerve, of which the special 
excitant is light, and to which it alone responds, 
to set in motion an apparatus in the tubercula 
quadrigemina, by the action of which a picture 
or notion of the parade is reproduced in the 
quadrigeminal station. Thus every impression 
which is photographed on the retina of the eye is 
reproduced in the tubercula quadrigemina, though 
it by no means follows that the same physical 
appearance or condition which light produces in 
the eye is repeated at the other extremity of the 
optic nerve. It is evident, on the contrary, that 
no such repetition can occur, for the tubercular 
apparatus is altogether different from the retinal 
apparatus, and responds to a different stimulus. 
How the optic nerve behaves, when, stimulated 



visions. 67 

by light at its retinal extremity, it sets in motion 
an apparatus at its quadrigeminal extremity, we 
do not know any more than we know how a wire 
behaves when it conducts electricity from one 
station to another. Any explanation of the mat- 
ter must, from the nature of the case, be more or 
less hypothetical. Wundt says, referring to his 
analysis of the evidence on this point : " Nothing 
more can be inferred from these facts than that 
light is changed within the optic filaments to a 
form of motion, which corresponds to the velocity 
of the waves of light, only within limits that are 
yet to be ascertained.' ' x The hypothesis of Her- 
bert Spencer is, perhaps, as plausible and satis- 
factory as any which it is possible to offer at the 
present time. " He looks upon the stimulus ap- 
plied to a sentient surface as molecular action is- 
suing from the disturbing cause, and transmitted 
through the nerve-fibre, by means of isomeric 
transformation, to the nerve-cell, in which the 
force is augmented by the decomposition of some 
unstable matter, to be sent again by isomeric 
transformation to the muscular fibre, where it is 
lost in the contraction it caused. In proportion 
to the degree of intensity of the stimulus, this is 
extended to neighboring nerve-cells belonging to 
the same group, in which, by decomposition of 
their contents, more nerve-force is liberated, etc. 
The transmission of nerve-force he further sup- 

1 Grundziige der Physiologischen Psychologic, von Wilhelm 
Wundt, p. 332. 



68 visions. 

poses not to take place in the form of a continu- 
ous current, but rather in separate waves of mole- 
cular change, each wave being produced by the 
molecules of the nerve-substance falling from one 
of their isomeric states to the other ; and having 
. fallen in passing, on increasing the pulse or shock, 
they remain incapable of doing anything more, 
until they have resumed their previous isomeric 
state. In this manner, then, innumerable waves 
of nervous energy, following each other in rapid 
succession, and constituting a nervous current, are 
produced." x 

This point has been elaborated at length, on 
account of its importance in connection with the 
physiology of visions, an importance which will 
be apparent when that subject is discussed. 

FUNCTIONS OF THE TUBERCULA QTTADRIGEMINA. 

The tubercula quadrigemina form the first in- 
tracranial station, on the way from the eye to the 
frontal lobes of the brain. They are four small 
but important bodies, of which the functions are 
obscure, and till lately have been imperfectly un- 
derstood. It has long been known that they are 
essential to vision, but the precise office which 
they perform in connection with the eye remained 
undiscovered until recently, and now, though phy- 
siologists have cleared away a good deal of the 

1 Transactions of the American Neurological Association, vol. 
i., p. 119. Structure of the Nervous Tissues, by H. D. Schmidt, 
where H. Spencer is quoted as above. 



visions. 69 

obscurity which concealed their functions, much is 
to be done. Fortunately for our purpose, what 
has been discovered is of great service in attempt- 
ing a rational explanation of the phenomena of 
pseudopia. 

Physiology teaches that the functions of the 
tubercula quadrigemina may be divided into four 
classes : those connected with the muscular ap- 
paratus of the eye ; those connected with the 
muscular apparatus of the whole body, and par- 
ticularly with the apparatus of locomotion and 
equilibration ; those remotely connected with emo- 
tion and intellection ; and those connected di- 
rectly with the sense of sight. When carefully 
examined it will appear that these apparently 
diverse functions which physiologists have local- 
ized in the tubercula quadrigemina have an in- 
timate connection with each other, through the 
relation which sight bears to muscular, emotional, 
and intellectual action. In accordance with this 
generalization, it may be stated that the tuber- 
cula quadrigemina are charged with the reception 
and transmission of visual impressions, and with 
the duty of coordinating all automatic muscular 
movements, whether of the eye or of the whole 
body, or of any part of the body, which require 
for their initiation or perfectation the intervention 
of sight, and with contributing certain reflex vis- 
ual elements to general cerebral activity. Thus 
regarded, much of the obscurity and complexity 
with which the tubercula quadrigemina have been 



70 VISIONS. 

invested disappears, and the mechanism of their 
functions becomes comparatively simple and intel- 
ligible. Dr. Dalton says, most happily, that the 
tubercula quadrigemina preside, as ganglia, over 
the sense of sight. They are not the centre of 
vision, but they preside over the process of vis- 
ion, and over all automatic or reflex actions which 
require vision for their perfect performance or 
harmonious development. It should be borne in 
mind that ideated vision, or what Carpenter would 
call the ideo-motor action of sight, has its centre, 
not in this region, but higher up in the hemi- 
spheres. Wundt expresses himself thus : " We 
cannot doubt that the mechanism by which sight 
directs the muscular apparatus of our body is 
placed in the tubercula quadrigemina. But we 
should remember that muscular motions are per- 
formed under the influence of light in a twofold 
way : first, by the tubercula quadrigemina them- 
selves, where visual impressions of light first set 
free those compound motor reactions which cor- 
respond to the quality and form of the impres- 
sions of light ; and next in the cortex, where, at 
the central termination of the optic filaments, a 
sort of transference takes place The di- 
rect action of the tubercula quadrigemina is lim- 
ited to an influence over locomotion, locomotion 
itself depending on other causes, and to the pro- 
duction of such movements as follow the immedi- 
ate impression of light, such as reflex movements 
of the eye, the pupil, the eyelids, and efforts to 



VISIONS. 71 

avoid excessive light. 1 The statement of a few- 
details will be sufficient to justify the generali- 
zation which has just been made, and will also 
illustrate the character of the quadrigeminal func- 
tions. 

The familiar phenomenon of contraction of the 
pupil, under the influence of light, is a reflex ac- 
tion, " in which the impression," says Dalton, " re- 
ceived by the retina is transmitted along the optic 
nerve to the tubercula quadrigemina. From the 
tubercles a motor impulse is then sent out through 
the motor nerves of the eye and the filaments dis- 
tributed to the iris, and a contraction of the pupil 
takes place in consequence." In this way the tu- 
bercles regulate the amount and intensity of light 
falling upon the retina. In like manner, those 
movements of the eyeball, which are necessary to 
guide and preserve the axes of the eyes in any 
direction required for the purposes of vision, are 
reflexes from the tubercula quadrigemina. When 
a seamstress undertakes to thread a needle, the 
pupils of her eyes are adjusted to the surrounding 
light, her eyeballs to the appropriate axis of vis- 
ion, the position of her head to the requirements 
of her eyeballs, and the movements of her arms 
and fingers to the act of entering the thread into 
the eye of the needle. All the muscular machin- 
ery necessary to the execution of this complicated 
manoeuvre is coordinated with light so as to ac- 
complish the purpose, by the tubercula quadrigem- 

1 Wundt, op. cit., pp. 194, 195. 



72 visions. 

ina. It is not a difficult task to balance the body 
on one foot, for a few moments, with the eyes 
open. Let the same experiment be tried with the 
eyes shut, and the difficulty of steadily maintain- 
ing an equilibrium is vastly increased. In the 
last case, the muscles are guided and controlled in 
their effort to preserve a firm, upright posture by 
the muscular sense alone ; in the former case, the 
muscular sense is supplemented by sight ; and 
such aid is rendered possible by the mediation of 
the tubercles, which coordinate visual impressions 
with muscular effort. In this action, as in many 
others, the muscles can be trained to act without 
the aid of the eye, but their perfect working can 
be secured only in the manner indicated. It is a 
long and laborious process for a child to learn to 
walk, but after the art is acquired, walking is so 
far automatic, that it is accomplished with appar- 
ent unconsciousness ; yet, let a person close his 
eyes when walking, and his gait immediately be- 
comes insecure. Here again it is by means of the 
tubercula quadrigemina that a muscular effort is 
rendered easy and perfect, which would otherwise 
be difficult and imperfect. 

If the tubercula quadrigemina are destroyed, 
leaving other parts of the brain intact, an experi- 
ment which has been performed on frogs, fishes, 
rabbits pigeons, dogs, and monkeys, the result is 
that, while with the exception of loss of sight all 
the senses are preserved, marked disturbances of 
equilibrium and loco-motor coordination are pro- 



visions. 73 

duced. " In rabbits, disorganization of the cor- 
pora quadrigemina causes blindness, with dilata- 
tion and immobility of the pupils, and also very 
marked disturbances of equilibrium and locomo- 
tion. While still capable of making coordinated 
movements of all four limbs on reflex stimulation, 
or when held up by the tail, they could neither 
stand nor walk, but rolled over from side to 
side." 1 The experiments of physiologists justify 
the assertion that the optic tubercles are not only 
essential to vision and to irido-ocular motion, but 
that they form an essential part of the central 
mechanism, by which visual impressions are co- 
ordinated with equilibrium, locomotion, and all 
muscular effort requiring light for its best results. 
The relations of visual impressions to corporeal 
movements are not exhausted by the functions of 
the tubercula quadrigemina. It is probable that 
such impressions are still further elaborated in the 
thalami optici. Wundt suggests, " that the con- 
nection of visual impressions with corporeal move- 
ments, which are partly determined in the optic 
tubercles, may be perfected in the optic thalami, 
through the filaments which can be traced from 
the latter to the optic tract. Inasmuch as the 
same motor mechanism, which is regulated by the 
organ of tact, can also be excited by the organ 
of sight, it is conceivable that such an arrange- 
ment would essentially contribute to the simplifi- 
cation of the central function." 2 Dr. E. Tourni6 

1 ITerrier's Functions of the Brain, p. 74, Am. ed. 

2 Wundt, op. cit., p. 201. 



74 visions. 

has been led still further in the same direction by 
his experiments. He destroyed the optic thalami 
of dogs by an injection of chloride of zinc, and 
inferred therefrom, that the optic thalami are the 
" unique centre " of perception, and of the coor- 
dination of perception with all the other senses, 
and with all bodily movements. His experiments 
do not fully bear out his conclusions, and other 
investigators have not confirmed his views in this 
respect. Nevertheless, it may be safely affirmed, 
that the functions of the optic thalami sustain an 
intimate relation to those of the tubercula quad- 
rigemina. The two centres are anatomical neigh- 
bors and physiological partners. What the precise 
character and limits of their separate functions 
are must be left to the decision of physiologists ; 
it is sufficient for the purpose of a rational ex- 
planation of the phenomena of pseudopia to know, 
that between the eye and the cerebral hemi- 
spheres, there is a region where visual impressions, 
proceeding from the eye, are transformed, classi- 
fied, and coordinated with other sensory impres- 
sions, whence they are transmitted to the hem- 
ispheres, there to be still further elaborated, and 
made the basis of ideation and volition. 

The relation of visual impressions to emotion 
and intellection are more subtle and obscure, but 
not less real, than those which have just been 
described. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to 
demonstrate, experimentally, where and how such 
impressions are coordinated with emotion and 



visions. 75 

thought, but the inference from the data af- 
forded by physiology, pathology, and clinical ob- 
servation, is conclusive, that such coordination 
takes place, and that the work is partially accom- 
plished by the tubercula quadrigemina. A priori 
considerations yield a presumption, which almost 
amounts to a demonstration, of the truth of this 
statement. A world of beauty, emotion, and ideas 
floods the brain through the eye. Sight is the 
medium, by which the beauty of the human face 
and form, and of all external life, is presented to 
us ; by which the varying expressions of passion 
and thought, of hope, joy, and pain, are discrimi- 
nated ; and by which we take hold of a large por- 
tion of the pleasures, sorrows, and possibilities of 
our mundane existence. It would be strange if a 
messenger, bearing such messages and laden with 
such treasures, were not admitted into the inmost 
recesses of the brain, and brought into contact 
with every cerebral function. It cannot be other- 
wise. Sight must influence all cerebral functions. 
Ferrier, whose caution and judicial fairness en- 
hance thg value of his conclusions, says : " The 
foregoing considerations on the relation between 
the phenomena of irritation and destruction of the 
corpora quadrigemina, though in many respects 
professedly only of a hypothetical nature, tend to 
support the view that these ganglia are the cen- 
tres specially concerned in the reflex expression of 
feeling or emotion. This is rendered still more 
probable by the recently demonstrated influence 



76 visions. 

which the corpora quadrigemina, or more properly, 
the deeper parts of the corpora quadrigemina, 
exert on the functions of circulation and respira- 
tion, modifications of which are one of the most 
frequent concomitants of states of feeling or emo- 
tion." 2 In another place he adds: "The feel- 
ings accompanying the more intellectual senses, 
sight and hearing, are the primordial elements of 
aesthetic emotions which are founded on harmo- 
nies of sight and sound." 2 It is as necessary that 
crude visual impressions should be somewhere 
elaborated, classified, and prepared, after leaving 
the eye, so as to fit them for the use of the higher 
cerebral centres, where ideation goes on ; or in 
other words, so as to coordinate them with the 
higher centres, as that this process should be 
performed, in order to coordinate them with the 
lower centres of motor activities. 

The most important function of the tubercula 
quadrigemina remains to be mentioned. The tu- 
bercles are the centre of the sense of sight, though 
not of the higher forms of conscious vision. Dal- 
ton teaches that u direct experiment also shows 
the close connection between the tubercula quad- 
rigemina and the sense of sight. Section of the 
optic nerve at any point between the retina and 
. the tubercles produces complete blindness ; and 
destruction of the tubercles themselves has the 
same effect. But if the division be made between 



1 Ferrier, op. cit., p. 83. 

2 Ibid., p. 260. 



visions. 77 

the tubercles and the cerebrum, or if the cere- 
brum itself be taken away while the tubercles are 
left untouched, vision, as we have already seen, 
still remains. It is the tubercles, therefore, in 
which the impression of light is perceived. So 
long as these ganglia are uninjured, and retain 
their connection with the eye, vision remains. 
As soon as this connection is cut off, or the gan- 
glia themselves are injured, the power of vision is 
destroyed." 1 Visual impressions first come, with- 
in the sphere or domain of consciousness when 
they reach the tubercula quadrigemina. Then 
they are first perceived by the ego. The eye, 
with its lenses, membranes, tubes, and cells, 
silently and unconsciously performs the task of 
collecting visual data, which data the optic nerve 
with equal unconsciousness transmits to the tuber- 
cles. Arrived at that point they are recognized 
by consciousness. 

The visual functions of the tubercula quadri- 
gemina which have been described suggest our two 
next inquiries : (1.) What is the mechanism, and 
what the process, by which the optic tubercles, 
after receiving a visual telegram from the eye, 
transform and transmit it to the hemispheres ? 
(2.) What kind of visual perception occurs in the 
tubercles ? Is it the same as that which occurs 
in the hemispheres, or is perception in the former 
different from perception in the latter ? A satis- 
factory answer to these two questions would go 

1 Dalton's Physiology, p. 435. 



78 visions. 

a great way towards solving the problem of pseu- 
dopia. Unfortunately, neither of these can be 
answered, in the present condition of physiological 
science, with the fulness and certainty which are 
desirable ; but if a complete answer is impossible, 
a partial one can be given. 

The inquiry which concerns the character of 
the machinery of the optic tubercles, and the 
manner of its action, naturally demands consid- 
eration first. 

The tubercula quadrigemina are ganglia of the 
nervous apparatus, and resemble in their con- 
struction other ganglia, which may be found at- 
tached to the nerves in every part of the organi- 
zation. In its simplest form, a ganglion is the 
junction, JcnotenpunJcte, the Germans call it, by 
which an afferent nerve is connected with an ef- 
ferent nerve, and is also the workshop where the 
effect of a sensory stimulus, carried thither by 
an afferent nerve, is transformed into a motor 
stimulus, and sent out to excite motion. The 
annexed diagram roughly represents this sim- 
ple, but efficient and marvellous, mechanical con- 
trivance. 



M. I2Z_ ( \ " S. 

o 

Fig. 1. Diagram of ganglionic machinery. S. Point of sensation, s. n. 
Sensory nerve, g. Ganglion or workshop, m. n. Motor nerve. M. Point of 
motion. 

When a sensory stimulus acts at S. informa- 



visions. 79 

fcion of the occurrence is sent through the sensory- 
nerve, s. w., to the ganglion, g. The message, re- 
ceived and read at #., is acknowledged by put- 
ting the ganglionic machinery in action and send- 
ing through the motor nerve, m. n., a correspond- 
ing message to a motor apparatus at M., where, 
on receipt of the message (transferred stimulus), 
motion is produced. The ganglion receives and 
deciphers a message from one direction, and pre- 
pares and dispatches a corresponding message in 
another direction. When the machinery acts nor- 
mally, as it does in the vast majority of cases, no 
message is ever dispatched by the ganglion, g., to 
m., except in response to a communication from s. 
Under certain abnormal conditions, however, it is 
possible for a ganglion to act spontaneously, and 
send an order without having received one. When 
this occurs, the operator at m. is deceived, sup- 
poses a communication has been received from s., 
and acts accordingly. It would anticipate the 
order of our subject to do more than allude to 
this important physiological fact in this connec- 
tion. Its bearing upon pseudopia will be pointed 
out in another place. 

Such is the office of a ganglion of the sim- 
plest character ; and such, essentially, is the office 
of ganglia of the most complex character ; of 
those charged with the highest cerebral functions. 
All are, of course, provided with the machinery 
for receiving, deciphering, and dispatching mes- 
sages. The tubercula quadrigemina are no ex- 



80 VISIONS. 

ception to this statement. They are ganglia, 
ganglionic workshops, placed between the eye 
and the hemispheres, and charged with the func- 
tions which have been described. Their appara- 
tus, like that of other ganglia, consists of cells, 
fibres, blood-vessels, and connective tissue, En- 
closed by a protecting membrane. 

Of this mechanism the cells form the most im- 
portant part, and should be carefully studied. 
They vary in shape and size. Some are round 
and some oval ; others oblong, spindle-shaped, 
triangular, or radiated. They are armed with one 
or more prolongations, upon which their shape 
largely depends, and by which the fibres connect- 
ing them with other cells and other tissues, enter 
and depart. The forms which occur most fre- 
quently in ganglionic and nerve tissue are repre- 
sented in Fig. 2. 

Cells are as variable in size as in shape. Mr. 
Bain tells us that nerve cells range from 3$$ to 
Wffo °f an i n °h * n diameter. According to the 
same authority, the nerve filaments, which enter 
and leave cells, range from ysV o to to oio o o - °f an 
inch in thickness. Each cell contains an eccen- 
tric, globular body, called its nucleus, enclosing a 
still smaller body, known as the nucleolus ; one 
packed within the other, like a nest of boxes. 
The space between the investing membrane, nu- 
cleus and nucleolus, is filled with minute, albumi- 
nous granules of protoplasm, which extend into 



VISIONS. 



81 



the cellular prolongations, and surround the nerve 
fibres and nerve filaments, entering and leaving 
these avenues (Fig. 2). Pigment granules are 
also found among the protoplasmic granules ; 

Fig. 2. 




Varieties op Nerve Cells, a. Radiated cell from the anterior horn of the 
spinal marrow with granules of protoplasm, f, extending into the prolonga- 
tions, b. Radiated and triangular cells from the cerebellum, c. Bipolar 
ganglionic cell, from the spinal ganglion of a fish. d. Pyramidal cell from 
the. cortex cerebri, e. Central origin of a nerve filament from a cell. 
/. Granules of protoplasm, g. Nucleus, enclosing nucleolus (after Wundt), 
pp. 29, 30. 



sometimes equally distributed among the latter, 
and sometimes collected in heaps by themselves. 
(Wundt). Lastly, there is that important ele- 
ment, the blood, which circulates with such free- 
dom among these corpuscles, that, according to 

6 



82 VISIONS. 

the computation of Herbert Spencer, as reported 
by Mr. Bain, five times as much blood flows 
around and among the corpuscles, as in other por- 
tions of nerve tissue. 

It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to make an 
accurate estimate of the number of fibres, cells, 
and granules, which with blood-vessels make up 
the tubercula quadrigemina. An approximative 
notion, however, may be formed by computing the 
number which the hemispheres of the brain con- 
tain, comparing the size of the hemispheres with 
that of the tubercles, and then estimating the pro- 
portionate number in the latter. The tubercles 
are not less rich in cells than the brain. " The 
thin cake of gray substance surrounding the hem- 
ispheres of the brain, and extended into many 
doublings by the furrowed or convoluted structure, 
is somewhat difficult to measure. It has been es- 
timated at upwards of 300 square inches, or as 
nearly equal to a square surface of 18 inches in 
the side. Its thickness is variable, but, on an aver- 
age, it may be stated at one tenth of an inch. It 
is the largest accumulation of gray matter in the 
body. It is made up of several layers of gray sub- 
stance, divided by layers of white substance. The 
gray substance is a nearly compact mass of corpus- 
cles, of variable size. The large caudate nerve-cells 
are mingled with very small corpuscles, less than 
the thousandth of an inch in diameter. Allowing 
for intervals, we may suppose that a linear row of 
five hundred cells occupies an inch, for three hun- 



visions. 83 

dred inches. If one half of the thickness of the 
layer is made up of fibres, the corpuscles or cells, 
taken by themselves, would be a mass one twenti- 
eth of an inch thick, say sixteen cells in the depth. 
Multiplying these numbers together, we should 
reach a total of twelve hundred millions of cells in 
the gray covering of the hemispheres. As every 
cell is united with. at least two fibres, often many 
more, we may multiply this number by four, for 
the number of connecting fibres attached to the 
mass ; which gives four thousand eight hundred 
millions of fibres." 1 According to this computa- 
tion, the cerebral hemispheres contain, in round 
numbers, one thousand millions of corpuscles, and 
five thousand millions of fibres. If the optic tu- 
bercles equal in size only a thousandth part of the 
hemispheres, they would contain one million of 
corpuscles, five millions of fibres, and from five to 
ten millions of protoplasmic and pigmentary gran- 
ules. Evidently, here is sufficient material for 
whatever grouping or action may be necessary to 
receive, register, and report the most varied visual 
experience of the longest human life. 

Nothing is known, and nothing probably ever 
will be known of the groupings, combinations, and 
metamorphoses of cells, corpuscles, and granules, 
by means of which visual impressions forwarded 
to the tubercula quadrigemina by the eye, are 
interpreted, recorded, and transmitted to the vis- 

1 Mind and Body, by Alexander Bain, LL. D., Am. ed., 
pp. 106-7. 



84 visions. 

ual centre of the hemispheres. We know, how- 
ever, that the constituent elements of the optic 
tubercles admit of mechanical, thermal, and chem- 
ical action, and it is conceivable that all of these 
agencies may be employed in visual operations. 
Corpuscles and granules are highly unstable ele- 
ments, easily decomposed and destroyed, and easi- 
ly reproduced. Their decomposition liberates a 
certain amount of nervous energy, which may be 
used to reinforce the original sensory stimulus, as 
the relay of a battery reinforces an electric cur- 
rent, or to perform some other work. " Gangli- 
onic cells," says Wundt, " possess in a high de- 
gree the power of developing and intensifying the 
stimulus they receive." In the case of the tuber- 
cula quadrigemina, this power may be exerted, 
not only for the purpose of forwarding with in- 
creased energy to the hemispheres a visual im- 
pression which has been received, but for oper- 
ations within the ganglia, by which recording, 
coordination, and signaling are effected. The de- 
composition of one or more granules by the spark 
of a visual stimulus, like the explosion of one or 
more grains of gunpowder by a spark of elec- 
tricity, may be the tubercular signal of a red color, 
or the force which groups two or more corpuscles 
in a form to signify a red color ; or the force to 
induce a chemical change, which shall coordinate 
sight with corporeal movements. 

The following diagram, Fig. 3, may serve to 
illustrate the conceivable action of the tubercula 



VISIONS. 



85 



quadrigemina under the influence of a visual im- 
pression, — that of an uplifted dagger, for example. 
Let R indicate the retina of the eye, upon which 




K, retina ; A A / A." fibres of the optic nerve. I, investing membrane of the 
tubercula quadrigemina. B W W ', group of visual cells. C C G" group 
of motor cells. D W W f group of visual cells in the hemispheres. E E'E" 
group of granules. F F' F 7/ volitional cells of the hemispheres. N N N, 
etc., connecting nerve fibres, cf cf, etc., communicating nerve fibres. 

the image of a dagger, and of a hand holding it, 
nas been impressed, as have also the data, as to the 
form, position, size, distance, color, and the like 
(of the dagger and its holder), which it is the 



86 VISIONS. 

office of the eye to collect and transmit (vide pp. 
54, 64). A A' A /r are bundles of nerve filaments of 
the optic nerve, by which the retina telegraphs 
the impressions made upon it to a group of visual 
cells, B W B ff in the tubercula quadrigemina, 
where sight, but not perfected vision, occurs. 
Each distinct visual impression goes by a separate 
track to a separate cell. From the group of vis- 
ual cells, a stimulus passes to a group of motor 
cells, C C f C r/ , by which sight is coordinated with 
the muscular movements of the eye and with 
those of the whole body, so far as these are called 
into action. At the same moment a stimulus 
passes from the visual cells, B B' B", to a group 
of cells D D ! D", in the centre of vision in the 
hemispheres, where perfected or intelligent vis- 
ion occurs. Simultaneously with the passage of 
these two currents of stimulation, a third passes 
from the visual group, B B' B ;/ , to a group of 
granules, E E' E", and by decomposing them, lib- 
erates an amount of nervous energy proportionate 
to the intensity of the stimulus. The energy 
thus liberated flows through the conducting nerve 
fibres N N N, to the motor group C C C", and 
increases the action of that centre ; it also flows 
back to the visual group B B' B", and yields 
force to that ; and by means of anastomosing 
nerve fibres supplies force wherever force is 
needed. From D D' D", the centre of vision in 
the hemispheres, an influence passes to F F' F ;/ , 
the hypothetical centre of volition, and excites 



visions. 87 

the will. The will sends down through N N N 
a volitional impulse to the motor-centre C C f C", 
stimulates that to increased effort, and also, by 
means of communicating fibres, of ef ef etc., acts 
on various centres of voluntary motion so as to 
bring the whole body into needful activity. In 
like manner, the impression made upon the cen- 
tre of vision in the hemispheres is diffused by the 
nerve fibres cf ef ef etc., in accordance with 
Bain's law of diffusion, throughout the gray mat- 
ter of the brain, and arouses the intellect and the 
emotions as well as the will. 

This scheme of visual and cerebral action is, 
of course, hypothetical. Whoever will take the 
trouble to compare it with our present knowledge 
of the anatomy and functions of the brain will 
admit, not only that it is a possible one, but that 
portions of it are probable, and that the truth of 
some of it has been demonstrated. It will serve, 
at any rate, to illustrate some of the recognized 
forms of cerebral activity, the aid of which will 
be invoked by and by in explanation of the phe- 
nomena of pseudopia. 

Nature is always economical of her resources 
and delights in the distribution of labor. This is 
strikingly illustrated by the process of vision which 
we are studying. Notwithstanding the abundant 
preparation in the tubercula quadrigemina for op- 
erating upon visual impressions, only a portion 
of the work is done there. It has previously been 
stated that the eye is charged with the duty of 



88 visions. 

ascertaining the color, form, size, distance, posi- 
tion, and movement of bodies, and of reporting 
the result to the tubercular station. The optic 
tubercles take up the process of vision, where the 
eyes leave it, and elaborate, and coordinate visual 
impressions, in the manner previously described, 
but they do not repeat, or authenticate the work 
of the eyes. Simple facts and combinations, which 
are ascertained by the eye, are themselves recom- 
pounded by the tubercles into higher combina- 
tions. " The eye, by its optical function, takes 
in grades of light and shade, mixtures of white 
and dark in the series of grays, and varieties of 
color. A good eye might have several hundreds 
of distinct optical gradations in these various ef- 
fects. But the eye shows its great compass in 
the plurality of combinations of points or surfaces 
of different light, making up what are commonly 
called images : compounds of visible form (muscu- 
lar) and visible groupings (optical). The multi- 
tude of these that can be distinctly embodied and 
remembered would seem to defy computation ; yet 
every one must have its own track in that laby- 
rinth of fibres and corpuscles called the brain." 1 

The millions of cells, granules, and fibres, which 
constitute the visual apparatus, enable every pos- 
sible visual impression and gradation of impression 
to follow its own track to the brain, and to have its 
own cell, or group of cells, in which to be depos- 
ited and preserved, and from which it may be 

1 Bain, op. cit., p. 99. 



VISIONS. 89 

derived. It is evident that this distribution 
of labor, in accordance with which the eyes, the 
optic tubercles, and the hemispheres, all perform 
their own part in the process of vision, and which 
requires each lower station, or bureau, to report 
only its results to a higher station, increases ac- 
curacy of work, and, by economizing conducting 
lines and sensory cells, affords an almost infinite 
opportunity for the employment of separate tracks. 
For the purpose of meteorological investigations, 
a dozen or a hundred stations collect, by means 
of thermometers, barometers, hygrometers, and 
the like, all necessary atmospheric data and re- 
port them to a central bureau, where they become 
the basis of comparison and coordination. The 
outlying stations are the eyes, and the central 
bureau, which collates the data, are the optic 
tubercles of meteorology. When we see a rose, 
the eye, by means of millions of retinal cells and 
tubes, ascertains its color and shading, form, size, 
position, and similar data, and reports them to the 
tubercles; this report is a visual impression or 
stimulus, which sets in motion the tubercular 
apparatus, and is the first intimation which con- 
sciousness receives of the presence and properties 
of the rose. 

Entering the domain of consciousness naturally 
suggests the consideration of the second question 
already proposed : namely, what is the kind of 
visual perception, which consciousness takes cog- 



90 VISIONS. 

nizance of in the tubercula quadrigemina ? What 
sort of conscious sight goes on there ? Wherein 
does it differ, if it differs at all, from vision in 
the hemispheres ? 

It is only within a comparatively recent period 
that any attempts have been made to answer this 
question. Indeed, the question could not have 
been raised twenty years ago ; for physiology had 
not then advanced sufficiently to admit of its be- 
ing asked. Latterly it has been raised, and phys- 
iologists have undertaken to answer it by exper- 
imental researches. Let us look at the answer 
which their investigations give. 

E. Fournie injected the optic thalami of a dog, 
so as to destroy the communication between them, 
together with the optic tubercles and the hemi- 
spheres, with one drop of a solution of chloride of 
zinc. The following, according to his report, was 
the result of his experiment: " Feeling, except 
the sense of vision, appeared in this animal to be 
uninjured. I am inclined to think, however, that 
if he appeared insensible to the approach of a 
candle, he was so, because he did not recognize 
the character of the object and not because he did 
not see it. In fact the injection had destroyed 
the fibres, which transmit optic perceptions to the 
cortical periphery, and which reciprocally trans- 
mit the excitement of the cortical periphery to 
the optic thalami, in order to arouse perceptions 
of memory in the latter. It is possible that the 



VISIONS. 91 

sense of vision was preserved ; the animal saw 
but did not understand, and remained passive." 2 

In the following experiments, conducted by the 
same observer, visual impressions were limited to 
the tubercula quadrigemina and optic thalami by 
destroying the hemispheres. It will be noticed 
that Fournie assigns to the optic thalami some of 
the functions which other physiologists assign to 
the optic tubercles. For our present purpose, 
this is not important. It is sufficient to know 
that some sort of visual impression and visual 
perception occurs in one or both of these regions, 
and that it differs from the visual action of the 
hemispheres. The experiments were eight. This 
account of them is that they " were performed on 
both hemispheres ; consequently they were as com- 
plete as possible. The seat of the injection was 
variable, though we operated regularly on the an- 
terior, the lateral and middle, and the posterior 
regions. In no instance were the phenomena of 
simple perception abolished. The animals always 
smelt, felt, saw, tasted, and touched, and thus in- 
dicated that the phenomena of simple perception 
are manifested in the optic thalami. On the other 
hand, the absence of knowledge and memory was 
constant. The animals, for example, saw a wall, 
but did not recognize that it was an obstacle, and 
that contact with it would be painful. They per- 
mitted a lighted sulphur match to be brought 

1 Recherches Experimentales, sur le Fonctionnement du Cerveau. 
Par le Dr. Edouard Fournie. Paris, 1873. 



92 visions. 

near them without turning the head aside, forget- 
ting that sulphur irritates the olfactory membrane. 
They moved to the right or left, with the gait 
of animals which do not know where they are, or 
what they are doing ; the organic reservoir of the 
association of acquired notions had been destroyed, 
and in consequence of this destruction, memory 
was no longer possible. They felt by all their 
senses, for to feel is to live, after a fashion, when 
the optic thalami are uninjured ; but they did not 
unite feeling with knowledge, for in order to do 
this, it is necessary that the optic thalami should 
receive a stimulus from the cortical periphery of 
the brain." 1 

Dalton, who has repeated Longet's experiment 
of removing the hemispheres in pigeons, and con- 
firmed Longet's results, says : " The effect of this 
mutilation is simply to plunge the animal into a 
state of profound stupor, in which he is almost 
entirely inattentive to surrounding objects. The 
bird remains sitting motionless upon his perch, or 
standing upon the ground, with the eyes closed 
and the head sunk between the shoulders. The 
plumage is smooth and glossy, but is uniformly 
expanded, by a kind of erection of the feathers, 
so that the body appears somewhat puffed out, 
and larger than natural. Occasionally the bird 
opens his eyes with a vacant stare, stretches his 
neck, perhaps shakes his bill once or twice, or 
smooths down the feathers upon his shoulders, and 

1 Fournie, Recherches, p. 88. 



visions. 93 

then relapses into his former apathetic condition. 
This state of immobility, however, is not accom- 
panied by the loss of sight, of hearing, or of ordi- 
nary sensibility. All these functions remain, as 
well as that of voluntary motion. If a pistol be 
discharged behind the back of the animal, he at 
once opens his eyes, moves his head half round, 
and gives evident signs of having heard the re- 
port; but he immediately becomes quiet again, 
and pays no further attention to it. Sight is also 
retained, since the bird will sometimes fix its eye 
on a particular object, and watch it for several 
seconds together. Longet has even found that by 
moving a lighted candle before the animal's eyes, 
in a dark place, the head of the bird will often 
follow the movements of the candle from side to 
side, or in a circle, showing that the impression 
of light is actually perceived by the sensorium. 
Ordinary sensation also remains, after removal of 
the hemispheres, together with voluntary motion. 
If the foot be pinched with a pair of forceps, the 
bird becomes partially aroused, moves uneasily 
once or twice from side to side, and is evidently 
annoyed at the irritation." 

" The animal is still capable, therefore, after 
removal of the hemispheres, of receiving sensa- 
tions from external objects. But these sensations 
appear to make upon him no lasting impression. 
He is incapable of connecting with his perceptions 
any distinct succession of ideas. He hears, for 
example, the report of a pistol, but he is not 



94 VISIONS. - 

alarmed by it, for the sound, though distinctly 
enough perceived, does not suggest any idea of 
danger or injury. There is accordingly no power 
of forming mental associations, nor of perceiving 
the relation between external objects. The mem- 
ory, more particularly, is altogether destroyed, and 
the recollection of sensation is not retained from 
one moment to another. The limbs and mus- 
cles are still under the control of the will ; but 
the will itself is inactive, because apparently it 
lacks its usual mental stimulus and direction. 
The powers which have been lost, therefore, by 
destruction of the cerebral hemispheres, are alto- 
gether of a mental or intellectual character ; that 
is, the power of comparing with each other differ- 
ent ideas, and of perceiving the proper relation 
between them." 1 

Referring to the manifestations of intellectual 
power and voluntary effort in decapitated animals, 
Wundt, whose exhaustive researches and judi- 
cial tone entitle his views to great respect, uses 
the following language : " In this respect, animals 
which retain the tubercula quadrigemina and 
optic thalami uninjured, undoubtedly behave pre- 
cisely as if decapitated. It is true, that as a rule 
they remain sitting or standing upright.; but the 
muscular tension, which enables them to main- 
tain such an attitude, is evidently the direct re- 
flex result of a persistent and uninterrupted im- 
pression made upon the skin. Moreover, there 

i Dalton, Physiology, pp. 421, 422. 



VISIONS. 95 

is no hint of any movement, not referable di- 
rectly to external irritation. A pigeon whose 
cerebral lobes have been removed, and a frog 
whose hemispheres have been separated from the 
optic tubercles, will remain for days continuously 
motionless on the same spot. But if, however, 
only a small portion of the cerebral lobes is left 
uninjured, all spontaneous movement is not ex- 
tinguished ; and in such a case spontaneous move- 
ment may be almost completely reestablished by 
means of the extensive transference of function, 
of which the different parts of the cortex are ca- 
pable. There have never been observed in com- 
plete absence of the superior portion of the brain, 
and of the cortex covering it, any vital manifes- 
tations which could be clearly interpreted as 
spontaneous, and not as movements directly de- 
pendent on external irritation. Hence, we may 
unhesitatingly affirm that in such animals, the 
reproduction of perceptions, which previously ex- 
isted, is impossible ; for such reproduction must 
necessarily lead, now and then, to corresponding 
movements. At the same time the conscious as- 
sociation of ideas by which an existing impression 
is referred back to antecedent perceptions, is 
altogether excluded. Yet here, as in the case of 
the spinal cord, it cannot be denied that a certain 
low grade of consciousness may be established, 
which will permit the preservation of impressions 
for a very short time. Only it must be remem- 
bered that such a consciousness contributes noth- 



96 visions. 

ing to the explanation of movements. These 
always carry with themselves the stamp of true 
reflex action, produced directly by external irrita- 
tion. Like all reflex action, they depend upon a 
simple mechanical series of antecedents, which, 
owing to the extraordinary perfection of constant 
automatic supervision, secure an appropriate adap- 
tation of movement to impression." * 

Ferrier's experiments on frogs have already been 
cited, which led him to the conclusion that so far 
as experiments on these animals are of value in 
such an inquiry, intellection, memory, and volition 
are functions of the hemispheres, and not of the 
tubercula quadrigemina. This conclusion he has 
strengthened by a large number of delicate and 
ingenious experiments on other animals, especially 
on monkeys, and by his investigations has con- 
firmed the views of Fournie, Dalton, and Wundt, 
which have just been presented. He says : " With 
the exception of the greater degree of muscular 
paralysis and the diminished power of accommo- 
dation of movements in accordance with sensory 
impressions, in general, and with visual impres- 
sions in particular, the phenomena manifested by 
rodents deprived of their cerebral hemispheres, 
differ little from those already described in frogs, 
fishes, and birds. The power of maintaining the 
equilibrium is retained, coordinated locomotive 
actions and emotional manifestations are capable 
of being excited by impressions on sensory nerves, 

1 Wundt, Physiologischen Psychologie, p. 829, etc. 



VISIONS. 97 

essentially, if not altogether to the same extent in 
all." i 

It is a difficult matter to reason correctly from 
experiments on the comparatively simple -mechan- 
ism of the lower animals to the functions of the 
higher ones ; and the difficulty is increased when 
we ascend still higher, and endeavor to unravel 
the intricacies of the nervous system of man by 
an appeal to that of animals. Still, if due cau- 
tion be employed, this method of inquiry is a legit- 
imate one, and yields important results. Upon 
this point the observer just quoted, remarks : 
" When we pass from the consideration of the 
functions which the lower centres in frogs, fishes, 
and birds are capable of performing, independ- 
ently of the cerebral hemispheres, to the effects of 
removal of the hemispheres in mammals, we have 
to deal with phenomena of a more varied charac- 
ter. We have seen that frogs, fishes, and birds, 
deprived of their cerebral hemispheres, continue 
to perform actions in many respects differing little, 
if at all, from those manifested by the same an- 
imals under absolutely normal conditions. But 
the results in the case of mammals, are far from 
exhibiting the same degree of uniformity. Dif- 
ferences of a marked character exist, according tc 
the age of the animals experimented c*?, and the 
order to which they belong. If we were to draw 
conclusions from experiments on one order of ani- 
mals, and extend them, without due qualification, 
1 Ferrier, Functions, etc., p. 39. 
7 



98 VISIONS. 

to animals in general, and particularly to man, we 
should be in danger of falling into serious errors. 
The neglect of such considerations has been a 
fruitful source of discrepancies and contradictions 
between individual physiologists, and between the 
facts of experimental physiology and those fur- 
nished by clinical and pathological research." 1 

This difficulty would be diminished if it were 
possible to subject the cerebro-spinal system of 
man, like that of animals, to experimental investi- 
gation ; but this cannot be done. Occasionally, 
however, disease produces in the nerve centres a 
local lesion, which fulfils all the conditions of an 
experiment, and from which, of course, correspond- 
ing conclusions can be drawn. Whenever this has 
occurred under the eye of a competent observer, 
it has been found to confirm the results of experi- 
ments on animals. Charcot reports the case of a 
female, seventy-six years old, who died of a pneu- 
monia of only two days' duration, in whom, at 
the post-mortem examination, the left cerebral 
hemisphere proved to be healthy, while the right 
contained a patch of softening which had de- 
stroyed the inferior, parietal lobule of the pli 
courbe (angular gyrus), the posterior half of the 
island of Reil, and the two first temporal convolu- 
tions. Before her pneumonia, this patient "got 
up every day and walked without difficulty. She 
even walked from her dormitory to the infirmary. 
While in the ward it was ascertained that the 

1 Ferrier, op. cit., p. 37. 



VISIONS, 99 

muscular strength of her hands was equal. She 
did not squint, nor exhibit any notable disturb- 
ance of vision." 1 The same observer quotes from 
M. Baraduc the case of a man in whom the two 
frontal lobes were altered to a large extent by a 
lesion which occupied on each side the first, 
second, and third frontal convolutions. " The 
patient, whose brain presented these alterations, 
had been for six years in the Hospice des Ma- 
nages. He exhibited no sort of will or sponta- 
neity. He walked every day in a hap-hazard 
manner, without any apparent motive, and ran 
against whatever objects were in his way. He 
died of bronchitis, and up to his last moments 
preserved the muscular force and sensibility of 
the two halves of his body." 2 The condition of 
this person, in whom the hemispheres had been 
so largely destroyed, resembled in a remarkable 
degree that previously described of frogs, pigeons, 
and monkeys, deprived of their hemispheres. Lo- 
comotion, sight, muscular powers, and coordina- 
tion were preserved, but spontaneous movement, 
memory, and intellectual activity were absent. 
He saw the form of objects, but did not recognize 
or appreciate their relations to himself or to other 
objects. The process of vision was arrested be- 
fore it was completed in the hemispheres. These 
two cases confirm, so far as they go, the trust- 

1 Revue Mensuelle de Me'decine et de Chirurgie, January, 1877, 
p. 10. Art. by Charcot et Pitres. 

2 Revue Mensuelle, ut supra, p. 14. 



100 VISIONS. 

worthiness of the method of studying the nervous 
system of man by that of animals, and conse- 
quently of the deductions, drawn in this essay, as 
to the visual functions of the tubercula quadri- 
gemina and hemispheres in man, from experi- 
mental researches on animals. 

It appears from the foregoing considerations, 
that intellection, memory, and volition must be 
eliminated from that part of the process of vision 
which resides in the optic tubercles, and which 
constitutes their chief function. It is not clear, 
however, that emotion can be so distinctly sepa- 
rated from them. Emotion is largely, if not exclu- 
sively instinctive, and the central mechanism of 
instincts is in the basal ganglia. We had occasion 
to observe, when describing the coordinating func- 
tion of the tubercles and optic thalami (p. 73), 
that there were strong presumptions in favor of 
the hypothesis of the coordination of visual im- 
pressions with emotional, as well as with muscular 
action, in the tubercular region. The following 
experiment of Vulpian, quoted by Ferrier, illus- 
trates and strengthens this hypothesis. Physiolo- 
gists say that the rat is exceptionally emotional ; 
that it is a peculiarly sensitive, if not sentimental 
creature, and therefore admirably adapted to ex- 
periments intended to bring oat emotional expres- 
sion. Vulpian placed one before his class in his 
lectures, and calling attention to its emotional 
characteristics, remarked : "It is very timid, very 
impressionable ; it bounds away at the slightest 



VISIONS. 101 

touch ; the slightest sound causes it to start. A 
whistle, or a sharp hiss, like the angry spit of 
a cat, excites in it vivid emotions. Before you is 
a rat, from which I have removed the cerebral 
hemispheres. You see it remains perfectly quiet. 
I now whistle with the lips, and you see the ani- 
mal has made a sudden start. Each time I repeat 
the same sound you behold the same effect. Those 
of you who have studied the expression of emo- 
tion in the rat will recognize the complete iden- 
tity of these with the ordinary emotional manifes- 
tations of this animal." 1 In this instance, an 
auditory impression, made upon the basal ganglia 
and prevented, by ablation of the hemispheres, 
from going higher, excited the emotion of fear. 

These experiments and clinical and pathologi- 
cal observations lead inevitably to the conclusion, 
that the kind of visual perception, which occurs 
in the tubercula quadrigemina, is of a purely 
mechanical or automatic character. The ideas, 
thoughts, memories, and volitions, which visual 
impressions produce or awaken, form no part of 
the perceptive function of the tubercles. As soon 
as a visual telegram is received by them from 
the eye, the message is distributed to the vari- 
ous motor, visual, and emotional centres with which 
the tubercles are in communication, but the mes- 
sage is forwarded without being understood. Just 
as we have seen in the simplest form of ganglionic 
action that a ganglion, as soon as it has received 

1 Terrier , Functions, etc., p. 69. 



102 VISIONS. 

through a sensory nerve notice of a sensation, 
sends out a motor stimulus, without any more 
comprehension or perception of what it is doing 
than an seolian harp has of the process or power 
by which its strings send out music in response to 
the touch of the wind, so the optic tubercles re- 
ceive a visual impression, and send out in various 
directions an appropriate response, without any 
intelligent perception of what has touched them, 
or to what issues their action tends. Conscious- 
ness recognizes the fact, whenever the tubercles 
receive and send forward a visual impression, by 
means of a telegram, that such an occurrence has 
taken place in that region, but it looks to the hem-* 
ispheres for information as to the nature of the 
impression. If there is any consciousness in the 
tubercles, it is of that low grade to which Wundt 
refers as existing in all automatic centres, and as 
disconnected from memory and spontaneity. 

The foregoing study of the functions of the 
tubercula quadrigemina has cleared away a good 
deal of the difficulty and obscurity which have 
hitherto enveloped them ; and it indicates, perhaps 
it may be said that it demonstrates, the following 
conclusions : — 

1. The tubercula quadrigemina are a visual 
centre, charged with the office of receiving visual 
impressions from the eye, and of forwarding them 
when received to certain motor centres and to the 
hemispheres. 

2. The visual impressions received by the tu- 



VISIONS. 103 

bercula quadrigemina are not physically the same 
as those made upon the retina of the eye, but are 
the result of a stimulus, which, propagated along 
the optic nerve, produces a peculiar molecular ac- 
tion in the tubercles. 

3. Every object, color, and grouping of objects, 
capable of affecting the eye, produces in the tu- 
bercula quadrigemina a definite sort of chemical, 
mechanical, or thermal change, which is the hiero- 
glyphic or cipher of that object, color, or grouping, 
and is the representative of no other object, color, 
or grouping. 

4. The tubercula quadrigemina coordinate sight 
with irido-ocular movements, and, aided by the 
optic thalami, with all muscular movements, 
whether of locomotion or otherwise, for the per- 
fect and harmonious performance of which sight 
is necessary. 

5. If the tubercula quadrigemina are separated 
from the hemispheres by the destruction of the 
latter, or by interrupting the communication be- 
tween these two regions, the tubercles are still 
capable of performing their functions independ- 
ently ; and, conversely, if they are destroyed, the 
hemispheres remaining uninjured, blindness, loss 
of irido-ocular coordination, and imperfect coordi- 
nation of the general muscular system result. 

6. Simple perception of light and of visible 
objects is a function of the tubercula quadrigem- 
ina, but it is perception, without memory, intellec- 
tion, or volition ; without any recognition of the 
character or relations of the objects seen. 



104 VISIONS. 

7. The tubercula quadrigemina are essential to 
the process of vision, but are not centres of con- 
scious vision. 

VISUAL CENTRE OF THE HEMISPHERES. — AN- 
GULAR GYRUS. — PLI COURBE. 

The third station on the way from the eye to 
the frontal lobes of the brain, from the objective 
world of matter to the subjective world of ideas, 
from the not me to the me, is the angular gyrus, 
or centre of vision in the hemispheres. Here see- 
ing really takes place. Here, deep in the recesses 
of the brain, is the true world of vision and of 
visions, — the sphere where is spread before the 
mind all the wonder which light reveals, and 
where pseudopia plays its strangest freaks. The 
innumerable visual impressions, which, made upon 
the eye, are afterwards appropriately classified 
and variously coordinated by the tubercula quad- 
rigemina, are sent up to this centre, here to be 
still further elaborated ; brought into relation with 
the highest mental powers ; made to subserve the 
processes of ideation ; pressed into the cells of 
memory ; and fitted to excite the will. It is with 
the grouping of cells in the angular gyrus that we 
see, and not with our eyes. 

Until recently there has been a profound disa- 
greement upon the question of the localization of 
motor and other functions in the cerebral lobes, 
between the results of experimental physiology 
and the facts of clinical observation. The former 



VISIONS. 105 

have affirmed that the cortical substance of the 
brain was an inexcitable unit, which possessed 
and exhibited the same properties in all its parts; 
the latter produced a series of cases of lesions, 
limited to definite localities in the cortical sub- 
stance, which gave rise to definite and peculiar 
functional derangements. As a natural conse- 
quence of disagreement upon such an essential 
point, two distinct theories were put forth and 
defended with regard to it. One maintained 
the inexcitability and solidarity of the cerebral 
lobes, and declared that " the intellectual and 
perceptive faculties reside in the cerebral lobes ; 
coordination of movements of locomotion in the 
cerebellum ; and direct excitation of muscular con- 
traction in the spinal cord and its nerves 

The organ by which an animal perceives and 
wills neither coordinates nor excites ; the organ 
which coordinates does not excite ; and recipro- 
cally, the organ which excites does not coordi- 
nate." 1 The other theory, first definitely pro- 
pounded by Gall, and afterwards elaborated by 
Spurzheim, acquired the name of phrenology, and 
made of the brain a sort of delicate mosaic work, 
divided into as many separate organs as there are 
cerebral functions. The facts of clinical experi- 
ence and numerous physiological observations were 
opposed to each of these extremes. There were 

1 Flourens, Recherches Exp&imentales sur les Proprietes et les 
Fonctions da Systhne Nerveux dans les Animaux Vert€br€s i 2 e ed M 
Paris, 1842, preface, p. xiii. 



106 VISIONS. 

sound and philosophical students of the nervous 
system, who suspected that the truth lay between 
the two, where it would one day be discovered. 
One of the soundest of them, Andral, remarked 
years ago : " In face of so many facts, which, in 
alterations of the brain, continually point to its 
most diverse parts for an explanation of the dis- 
turbance of a single function, shall we deny that 
certain portions of the encephalon are specially 
devoted to the performance of certain acts ? We 
have no right to do so ; for it is probable, that 
certain points of the brain have such a mutual 
connection, that a lesion of one reacts in a special 
manner upon another; and it maybe that it is 
this secondary alteration, inappreciable by the 
scalpel, which produces some special functional 
disorder." x 

Within the last few years the labors of Fritsch 
and Hitzig in Germany, of Hughlings Jackson 
and Ferrier in England, of Carville and Duret 
and Charcot in France, have accomplished a great 
deal towards reconciling the result of experiment 
with the facts of pathology, and have shown that 
the brain is neither the inexcitable unit of Flou- 
rens, nor the mosaic work of Gall. They have 
shown that there are certain regions in the human 
brain, which contain centres of various motor and 
sensory activities ; and other regions, which, even 
if they are charged with diverse functions, are 
so intimately connected with each other that they 
1 Andral, Clinique Medicate, tome v., p. 195. 



VISIONS. 107 

«*ct harmoniously as a unit. 1 The centre of vision 
in the hemispheres, christened by the anatomists 
the angular gyrus, and called by the French, on 
account of its shape, the pli courbe, is one of these 
recently defined regions which is of great impor- 
tance in our present inquiry, and to which we 
must now turn our attention. 

The evidence which has been adduced proves 
conclusively that the process of vision, which 
commences in the eye and is afterwards carried on 
by the tubercula quadrigemina, is not completed 
by these ganglia, but has some other organ or 
region for its full and final development. This 
has long been suspected, or rather believed, by 
physiologists, but it was not known till recently 
whether a visual impression, after leaving the 
optic tubercles, spreads itself for the inspection 
and use of the mind over the whole cortical sub- 
stance of a hemisphere, or is confined to a def- 
inite centre in that substance, from which it radi- 
ates in every direction. The discovery by experi- 
mental investigation that cerebral vision is cen- 
tred in the angular gyrus has put that question 
at rest. 

1 The speculations of the ancients upon the functions of the 
brain were sometimes singularly near the truth, of which the 
demonstration was reserved for later and in some instances for 
recent times. Thus Hippocrates taught that, " It is by the brain 
we think, understand, see and hear, know ugliness and beauty, 
evil and good, pleasure and pain ; .... it is by the brain that 
insanity and delirium, fear and terror, groundless error and mo- 
tiveless anxiety beset us/' — (Euvres Completes d' Hippocrates, 
Vaduction par ~k. Littre, tome vi., p. 387. Paris. 



108 VISIONS. 

The angular gyrus, according to Ferrier, is a 
section of the parietal lobe of the brain, situated 
below the intro-parietal sulcus, and a little pos- 
terior to the horizontal branch of the fissure of 
Sylvius. It bends in a fold or arch, and hence its 
French appellation, pit courbe, over and around 
the temporo-sphenoidal convolution in which is 
the auditory centre. In close proximity to it are 
the centres of smell and taste, as well as the tac- 
tile centre. So that this region contains as near 
anatomical neighbors, the centres, or centric ter- 
minal stations of the five senses of sight, hearing, 
smell, taste, and touch. It is a region, in which 
these senses bring the whole external world into 
immediate contact with the mind ; a region, where 
matter assumes its most immaterial, and mind its 
most material condition ; and where, if anywhere, 
mind and matter touch each other, and react on 
each other. 

The angular gyrus is shown to be the visual 
centre of the hemispheres by two series of ex- 
perimental investigations which supplement each 
other. One series presents the results following 
its destruction, and the other those following its 
stimulation in living animals. The effect of stim- 
ulating it by an electric current is to produce phe- 
nomena which " seem to be merely reflex move- 
ments, consequent on the excitation of subjective 
visual sensation." x That is, stimulation of the 
angular gyrus in a monkey, dog, cat, or other 
1 Ferrier, op. cit., p. 164, Am. ed. 



VISIONS. 109 

animal, produces subjective pseudopia, which is 
accompanied with movements of the eyeball, con- 
traction of the pupil, closure of the eyelids, and 
other efforts, indicating a desire on the part of the 
subject of the experiment to escape from some 
disagreeable visual impression. This fact of the 
artificial production of subjective pseudopia is 
one of great importance in our present inquiry. 
It will be referred to again by and by. 

Destruction of the angular gyrus (on one 
side) temporarily annihilates the visual function. 
" The loss of vision is complete, but is not perma- 
nent if the angular gyrus of the opposite hemis- 
phere remains intact ; compensation rapidly tak- 
ing place, so that vision is again possible with 
either eye as before. On destruction of the angu- 
lar gyrus in both hemispheres, however, the loss 
of vision is complete and permanent, so long, at 
least, as it is possible to maintain the animal un- 
der observation. When the lesion is accurately 
circumscribed in the angular gyrus, the loss of 
vision is the only effect observable, all the other 
senses and the powers of voluntary motion remain- 
ing unaffected. 1 

There is an apparent discrepancy between this 
statement, that destruction of the angular gyrus 
in each hemisphere completely destroys vision 
and the statement previously made that sight 
may exist in the tubercula quadrigemina, after 
destruction of the hemispheres. Both of these 
1 Ferrier, op. cit., p. 164. 



110 VISIONS. 

statements are correct. The experiments which 
have been detailed show that, in living animals, 
ablation of the hemispheres, which of course in- 
cludes ablation of the angular gyri, leaving the 
lower visual centres intact, is followed by loss of 
vision ; and, moreover, that destruction of the tu- 
bercula quadrigemina, leaving the hemispheres in- 
tact, is in like manner followed by loss of vision. 
They also show that visual perception persists 
after ablation of the hemispheres, the tubercles 
remaining; and that it persists after destruction 
of the tubercles, the hemispheres remaining. Such 
are the results of experimental investigation, and 
they are not irreconcilable with each other. The 
discrepancy is only apparent. It arises, to a great 
extent, from want of precision in the use of lan- 
guage ; or, more exactly, from not attaching pre- 
cise ideas to the language we employ. 

The contradiction will disappear, and the re- 
sults harmonize with each other, if we bear in 
mind the distinction which has been established 
between the various kinds of visual perception. 
We have endeavored to emphasize the fact, to put 
it in as clear a light as possible, that the process 
of vision consists of several stages ; and that each 
stage has its own sort of seeing, its own sort of 
visual perception, of which the others do not par- 
take. The seeing of the retina of the eye consists 
\>f impressions, unrecognized by consciousness, 
made upon its cells and tubes by waves of light. 
The seeing of the tubercula quadrigemina consists 



VISIONS. Ill 

in receiving and appropriately distributing a vis- 
ual message, and of doing so within the domain of 
consciousness, but without the domain of memory, 
intellect, and volition. The seeing of the angular 
gyrus consists in receiving, apprehending, retain- 
ing, and appropriately distributing a visual mes- 
sage, forwarded by the tubercula quadrigemina, 
and of doing this within the domains of con- 
sciousness, memory, intellect, emotion, and voli- 
tion. Sight in the eye is automatic and uncon- 
scious. Sight in the tubercula quadrigemina is 
automatic, sensori-motor, and attended with a low 
grade of consciousness. Sight in the angular 
gyrus is intelligent, ideo-motor, partially auto- 
matic, and attended with the highest grade of 
consciousness. 

If a complete section of the visual apparatus is* 
taken out, or a visual centre destroyed, all vision 
between the point of destruction and the frontal 
lobes is annihilated. No visual impression can 
penetrate beyond the point of destruction ; a re- 
sult which theoretically would be expected and 
which experiment has demonstrated. On the 
other hand, if a visual centre remains between the 
point of destruction and the periphery, such a 
centre, to which of course a visual impression can 
penetrate, retains, for a time at least, its own spe- 
cial visual powers ; it retains its own sort of sight. 
This result, again, which theoretically would be 
anticipated, has been experimentally confirmed. 
If the eyes are taken out, no visual impression or 



tl2 VISIONS. 

stimulus can penetrate to the tubercula quadrige- 
mina, angular gyrus, or frontal lobes, and arouse 
them to action. If the angular gyrus is destroyed, 
the stimulus of light can still ascend through the 
eye to the optic tubercles, and excite the functions 
of each of these organs. This can be done till 
they become atrophied from want of use, and 
then, of course, all vision is impossible. When 
we remember that no memory, intellection, or vo- 
lition can be excited by a visual impression till it 
reaches the angular gyrus, we can easily under- 
stand why destruction of this centre, like ablation 
of the two hemispheres, should apparently produce 
total loss of every sort of visual perception. A 
function which is performed without consciousness 
or memory is practically abolished. An animal, 
which has been deprived of the angular gyrus and 
allowed to retain its optic tubercles, may see the 
same object a thousand times, in as many succes- 
sive seconds, minutes, or hours, but, unfurnished 
with memory, it will fail to recognize the object, 
or comprehend its relations. Such an animal will 
act as if it were blind, and practically it is blind. 
It will look at food of which it is fond, and of 
which it is in need, without making any effort to 
get hold of the food. Its eye will follow a lighted 
lamp, but it will not seek to avoid the flame, un- 
less it feels the heat. Charcot's patient, in whom 
disease had destroyed the angular gyrus, wandered 
about in a hap-hazard manner ; seeing, yet acting 
like a blind person. 



VISIONS. 113 

These considerations are sufficient to explain 
the apparent contradiction which has been men- 
tioned, and to show that the results of experi- 
mental investigation harmonize with, and support 
each other. The explanation may be briefly stated 
thus : Each visual centre has its own sort of visual 
perception. The destruction of a lower centre 
prevents a visual impression from ascending to a 
higher centre, and therefore produces blindness. 
The destruction of a higher centre leaves to each 
lower centre a low grade of visual perception, 
which, being unaccompanied with memory, is also 
practical blindness. 

Fournie insists upon the distinction (which we 
have pointed out) between the various kinds of 
perception. It will illustraie our subject and re- 
inforce our argument to compare his statement 
with the preceding. 

" In order," he says, " to comprehend the signification 
of these experiments, we must not lose sight of the es- 
sential distinction, which we have established, between 
a simple perception, produced in the optic thalami and 
a clear and definite perception (conception ?) produced 
elsewhere. The latter is the result of an acquired ex- 
perience, of an anterior comparison of two perceptions ; 
it includes in a word, somewhat more than a simple 
perception, and has also a different character. A simple 
perception is produced by an exciting object, which has 
just affected a sensitive nerve (this is all that objective 
impressions can produce). A detailed perception (£. e., 
conception) is the product of a cerebral element, which 
8 



114 VISIONS. 

has preserved the mark or trace of an intellectual effort, 
by which two simple perceptions were previously com- 
pared. This element is represented by millions of cells, 
which are disseminated throughout the cortical periph- 
ery of the brain, where they constitute the layer of 
gray matter. These cells, contrary to the opinion of 
some physiologists, and of M. Luys in particular, per- 
ceive nothing of themselves. They represent a dynamic 
movement, which alone possesses the power of exciting 
in the optic thalami, the unique centre of perception, 
a peculiar perception, or, in other words, an acquired 
notion. This essential distinction, which we have just 
established, gives us the key to memory, and enables us 
to point out its mechanism from a theoretical, experi- 
mental, and organic stand-point. To recollect one's self 
is to state, in effect, that our present impression differs 
from a former one, and in order to make such a state- 
ment, the brain must have preserved somewhere the 
trace of an anterior impression, to such an extent, that 
the latter can reexcite the centre of perception. 

" It is evident, if we recall the position which we have 
assigned to the phenomena of perception in our classifi- 
cation of the phenomena of life, that merely to feel is to 
live, but that to feel and know is to cerebrate. Cabanis 
was wrong, when he said, to live is to feel. It is pos- 
sible to live for a time without feeling ; but feeling with- 
out life is impossible. 

"Acquired notions, then, are represented by the im- 
pressionable cell elements which are distributed through- 
out the cortical periphery of the brain. There they are 
organically arranged without the intervention of the 
will. They are associated with each other by the pro- 
longations of cells, which are themselves so connected 



VISIONS. 115 

as to be capable of reciprocally exciting each other's 
activity, and of manifesting it, by exciting the centre of 
perception in the optic thalami. These views, deduced 
from a sound interpretation of the phenomena of life, 
and from pathological observation, throw a large amount 
of light upon mental operations, and on such psychical 
affections as hallucination, mania, etc." x 

The angular gyrus, like the tubercula quadri- 
gemma, is composed of groups of corpuscles, gran- 
ules of protoplasm, cells, enclosing nuclei and nu- 
cleoli, interlacing nerve fibres; blood-vessels, and 
connecting tissue. Of the manner in which these 
constituent elements behave under the influence 
of a visual impression (telegram) from the optic 
tubercles, we know as little as we do of the be- 
havior of similar elements in the tubercula quad- 
rigemina or optic thalami under the same in- 
fluence. The description which has been given of 
the possible grouping of cells and development of 
force through chemical, mechanical, thermal, or 
nutritive change by means of which the reception 
and forwarding of visual telegrams occur in the tu- 
bercula quadrigemina, applies to the angular gyri, 
so that it is unnecessary to rehearse the matter 
here. It is important to remember, however, that 
as the definite visual impression, which waves of 
light make on the retina, is not transferred to the 
optic tubercles, so in like manner the impression 
made on these organs through the optic nerve, is 
not transferred to the angular gyri ; a visual mes- 

1 Fournie', Recherches Experimentales, op. cit., p. 87, etc. 



116 VISIONS. 

sage is received, comprehended, and forwarded. 
This is done by means of definite groupings of the 
cells, or peculiar manifestations of the chemical 
and other forces of each angular gyrus. The mil- 
lions of cells in the gyri are amply sufficient to 
afford a separate cipher for every possible visual 
impression, and shade of impression, which car 
visit the most sensitive and intelligent eye during 
the longest life. 

As we approach the higher cerebral centres we 
meet with several physiological laws or habitudes, 
which deserve consideration, and with which an 
acquaintance is essential to a just appreciation of 
the delicate and complex phenomena of the higher 
ganglia of the nervous system, and especially of 
the mechanism of orthopia and pseudopia. One 
of the most interesting and important of these 
laws is that which enables the cells of nerve cen- 
tres to retain or register impressions. It may be 
called the law or power of cerebral registration. 
In accordance with it, impressions made on these 
cells are retained with a definiteness and perma- 
nence, proportional to the frequency and intensity 
of the impressions. A single, feeble impression 
leaves only a slight trace on the cells it reaches, 
and one which it is possible may be sooner or 
later obliterated. A single, strong impression 
leaves a deeper and more lasting trace. An im- 
pression, frequently repeated during a long period, 
leaves a deep and permanent trace. In this way 
the cerebral cells are modified by impressions 



VISIONS. 117 

made upon them, and the modification becomes in 
some unknown manner a part of the organization 
of the centres affected, and one which persists, in 
spite of the continual metamorphoses to which 
they are subjected. As a cicatrix upon the skin, 
following a burn or wound, will retain its place 
and structure as a part of the skin, through all 
the changes of growth and nutrition from child- 
hood to old age, so a cerebral cell or group of cells 
retains the type, which impressions have stamped 
into it, through all the changes of cerebral devel- 
opment and action. The millions of visual im- 
pressions made on the cells of the angular gyri, 
by the objective world, from childhood to old age 
leave traces of greater or less distinctness there. 
Some of these are slight and shadowy, and can 
only be reproduced with difficulty, after the lapse 
of any considerable period of time ; others are 
stamped deeply and indelibly into the cell struc- 
ture, and can be easily called into renewed activ- 
ity, even after many years have passed by. 

The subjective cerebral action resulting from 
visual impressions, made upon the angular gyrus, 
or telegraphed to it by the tubercula quadrigemi- 
na, is one of the forms of special sensation, and 
involves the highest grade of consciousness. It is 
in fact open to the inspection of self-consciousness, 
and furnishes motives and stimulants to the will. 
Such a result does not follow the action which 
light produces in the optical apparatus of the eye, 
or of the optic tubercles. Self may be conscious 



118 VISIONS. 

that the mechanism of these organs is at work, 
but the subjective side of their action is not 
reached till the angular gyri are put in motion. 
Ferrier happily says : — 

"The optical apparatus without the angular gyrus 
may be compared to the camera without the sensitized 
plate. The rays of light are focussed as usual, but pro- 
duce no chemical action, and leave no trace when the 
object is withdrawn, or the light from it shut off. The 
angular gyrus is like the sensitive plate. The cells un- 
dergo certain molecular modifications, which coincide 
with certain subjective changes constituting the con- 
sciousness of the impression, or special visual sensation. 
And as the sensitive plate records in certain chemical 
decompositions, the form of the object presented to the 
camera, so the angular gyrus records in cell modifica- 
tions the visual characters of the object looked at. We 
may push the analogy still further. Just as the chemi- 
cal decomposition effected by the rays of light may be 
fixed and form a permanent image of the object capable 
of being looked at, so the cell modifications which coin- 
cided with the presentation of the object to the eye, re- 
main permanently, constituting the organic memory of 
the object itself. When the same cell modifications are 
again excited the object is re-presented or rises up in 
idea. It is not meant by this analogy that the objects 
are photographed in the angular gyrus, as objects are 
photographed on the plate, but merely that permanent 
cell modifications are induced, which are the physiologi- 
cal representatives of the optical characters of the ob- 
ject presented to the eye. The optical characters are 
purely light vibrations, and few objects are known by 



VISIONS. 119 

these alone. The object appeals to other senses, and 
perhaps to movements, and the idea of the object as a 
whole is the revival of the cell modifications in each of 
the centres concerned in the act of cognition. For what 
is trne of the angular gyrus, or sight centre, is true, 
mutatis mutandis, of the other sensory centres. Each 
is the organic basis of consciousness of its own special 
sensory impressions, and each is the organic basis of the 
memory of such impressions in the form of certain cell 
modifications, the re-induction of which is the re-pre- 
sentation or revival in idea of the individual sensory 
characters of the object. The organic cohesion of these 
elements by association renders it possible for the re- 
excitation of the one set of characters to recall the 
whole." 1 

Not only is the angular gyrus capable of regis- 
tering impressions, but it can reproduce them un- 
der the influence of an appropriate and sufficient 
stimulus. It possesses, in other words, the power 
of reviving antecedent impressions, in accordance 
with what may be called the law of cell-reproduc- 
tion. From what has been said, we should ex- 
pect such a power to exist in the various gangli- 
onic nerve centres, including the cerebral visual 
centre. Visual impressions, which are to a greater 
or less extent pictorial on the retina, become in 
the tubercula quadrigemina, optic thalami, and 
angular gyri, cell-groups, or modified cell-manifes- 
tations. Each specific group or manifestation is 
the cipher or hieroglyphic of a specific visual ob- 
ject. Such being the mechanism of sight, it is 

1 Ferrier, op. cit., pp. 257, 258. 



120 VISIONS. 

evident that whatever will produce in any of the 
visual centres a cell-grouping or modification, 
which is the representative of any object, as a 
rose, a dagger, or a face, will also produce the sub- 
jective sensation or idea of the object. Ordinarily 
this occurs only when an object is presented ex- 
ternally to the eye, and the rays of light falling 
from it on the retina, set the whole visual appar- 
atus in action. Sometimes, however, causes which 
are purely intra-cranial will revive old cell-groups 
or modifications, and the subjective result is the 
seeing of objects of which there is no external 
existence. 

There are various intra-cranial conditions which 
lead to this curious result, some of which have 
been ascertained and others now unknown, will 
doubtless be discovered by and by. Two of them, 
habit and association, facilitate in a marked de- 
gree the revival of old impressions and contribute 
to the distinctness of the result. 

All recognize the force of habit in rendering 
the performance of actions easy, which when first 
attempted were difficult. It enables an infant to 
solve the hard problem of walking with rapidity, 
so as to exchange in early life an uncertain, slow, 
and painful gait for an assured and almost uncon- 
scious step. By its aid a musician will render 
with accuracy and effect the most difficult music, 
while his conscious self is wandering among the 
stars, or watching the mazes of a dance. The 
brain of a practised orator will sometimes act so 



VISIONS. 121 

far automatically under its influence as to pour 
forth a strain of intelligent discourse, while the 
speaker's self is temporarily intent upon some 
occurrence in his audience, or pursuing ideas aside 
from his speech. The visual centres do not escape 
from the influence of habit. Cell-groupings and 
cell-modifications, which are frequently formed, 
acquire the power of being reproduced with con- 
stantly increasing facility. Groupings, represent- 
ing the lineaments of a face which has been seen 
thousands of times, will re-form on the slightest 
visual hint that the familiar countenance is within 
the field of vision. Light reflected from a well- 
known lip, or eye, or nose, upon the retina, will 
not infrequently set the whole visual apparatus in 
motion, so as to produce in the angular gyrus a 
cell-group, which, being the representative of an 
accustomed face, will present it to our subjective 
vision. The more frequently the cell-groups of 
the visual centre have been made to assume a cer- 
tain form, the more easily and accurately do they 
arrange themselves in that order. In this way, a 
single feature, resembling that of a friend, seen on 
a stranger's face, will polarize one or more cells 
of the angular gyrus, and these being part of a 
group which has been put together a thousand 
times, will cause the whole group to c^stallize 
into shape and bring the friend before our sight. 

The influence of association over the cerebral 
visual centre, as well as over all nerve centres, is 
not less potent than that of habit, and is closely 



122 VISIONS. 

allied to it. Habit enables a visual cell-group to 
be formed with constantly increasing facility and 
accuracy ; association enables groups which have 
been associated with each other to call each other 
up, without any regard to mutual similarity or 
natural connection. Let A., B., and C, indicate 
the cell-groups or cell-modifications which repre- 
sent respectively a man, a horse, and a rock, and 
which have been frequently and for a long time 
associated together. The man seen alone will 
produce in the angular gyrus the visual group, A., 
and its corresponding subjective sensation. The 
grouping of A. will lead to the more or less com- 
plete grouping of B. and C. ; or A. may produce 
B. without C ; or C. without B. It is rare that 
associated visual groups are completely formed in 
this way ; if they were so the corresponding sub- 
jective sensation would be equally complete, and 
visions or pseudopia would be of frequent occur- 
rence. They are, however, often imperfectly 
formed and bring before the mind's eye imperfect 
subjective visual sensations, which may be still 
further developed by the ideo-motor action of the 
cerebral cells. Such groupings and visual sensa- 
tions are very apt to occur in sleep, and occasion 
dreams in which strange sights play a prominent 
part. This sort of association is an illustration of 
Bain's " Law of Contiguity," in accordance with 
which, " actions, sensations, and states of feeling, 
occurring together or in close succession, tend to 
grow together or cohere, in such a way that when 



VISIONS. 123 

any one of them is afterwards presented to the 
mind the others are apt to be brought up in 
idea." 

" Pictures which memory and fantasy produce," says 
Wundt, " are formed by the influence of direct percep- 
tion, or by that of other ideal conceptions with which 
they are in some way connected by the laws of associa- 
tion. Sometimes, indeed, it seems to us as if a definite 
picture arose in our consciousness without any cause. 
But even in such cases, the careful observer will seldom 
miss the link, which connects ideas with antecedent con- 
ditions. We overlook such connections easily, because 
re-presentation can be attached to any of the elements 
of perception and idea. Thus sensory and aesthetic 
feelings, and the affections which act upon our conscious- 
ness, and with which on account of their vagueness, as- 
sociation is indistinctly connected, readily serve as vehi- 
cles for reproduction. In view of the extraordinary 
variety of connections which are thus possible, and of 
the great difficulty of observing in one's self the simple, 
direct, internal current of our ideas, we are compelled to 
the conclusion, that a universal causality presides over 
this territory also, and that no picture of memory ever 
springs up over the threshold of consciousness, which 
did not appear there in accordance with those laws of 
association, which, in many cases, have been distinctly 
demonstrated to exist. In short, association is a psycho- 
logical antecedent. Hence we may describe the essen- 
tial difference between the pictures of perception and 
those of imagination as consisting in this : the former 
always have their origin in a physiological irritant ; the 
latter in a psychological irritation. We regard psychical 



124 VISIONS. 

irritation as the originator of these ideas, which whether 
resulting from contemplation or self-generated, bring a 
picture into consciousness by means of association. Now, 
although an ideal picture should possess the same ele- 
ments of sensation as the original perception, perhaps 
faded and modified in its details by the re-presentation 
of others, yet even here we must presuppose a physio- 
logical irritation of the central layers, which is developed 
in consequence of psychical irritation." * 

It is apparent from these considerations, that 
the angular gyrus is the last centre or station of 
the apparatus, which visual impressions traverse 
on their way from the external world to the 
frontal lobes, where they are turned over to the 
machinery of ideation and volition. In this cen- 
tre they receive their final elaboration, before 
being presented to the mind ; here they are ac- 
curately registered and preserved for revival or 
reproduction. However numerous, frequent, and 
varied these impressions may be, it contains ample 
provision for receiving, forwarding, and recording 
them all. It recognizes, pictures, and notes every 
shade of visual difference. From it the mind de- 
rives all the information light can impart of the 
external world, and upon the accuracy of its re- 
ports the mind implicitly relies. Whatever re- 
port it sends up the mind accepts as true. In the 
vast majority of cases, it justifies by its truthful- 
ness the confidence reposed in it. Were it not 
so, we should never be sure of anything we see. 

i Wimdt, op. cit., pp. 644, 645. 



visions. 125 

Were it apt to act of itself, without being stimu- 
lated by the eye, we should be unable to discrim- 
inate subjective from objective seeing — orthopia 
from pseudopia, — sights of external, from those 
of internal life. But, now and then, the angular 
gyri do act independently of the external world, 
and then we are amazed and confounded by their 
doings. Before discussing this point, however, it 
is important to examine the visual relations of the 
frontal lobes of the brain and angular gyri to each 
other. 

THE FRONTAL LOBES. 

The cerebrum is the seat of intelligence, the 
home of ideas and imagination, the forum, where 
reason hears and decides, and from whence the 
will utters its mandates which issue in action. 
It is not intended by this statement to affirm that 
mind and brain are identical, but only that all 
mental action, however -complex or subtle, is man- 
ifested through the brain. Neither is it intended 
to assert that the cerebrum is the sole organ of 
the mind; for it i£ probable, some physiologists 
would say proved, that the whole cerebro-spinal 
system, in varying degrees, contributes to mental 
force and mental processes, and aids in mental 
manifestations. Nevertheless, the chief seat of in- 
telligence is the cerebrum ; and of the cerebrum, 
the frontal lobes for all purposes of intellection, 
are the most important. They contain the most 
delicate and mysterious portions of the mind's 



126 visions. 

machinery. They constitute the organic basis of 
the higher intellectual faculties, and intellectual 
power is proportional to their development. 

The frontal lobes are divided by anatomists into 
three sections, called the superior, middle, and in- 
ferior frontal convolutions. These are situated 
directly behind and above the eyes, forming the 
anterior and highest portion of the cerebrum, a 
commanding position, symbolical of their watch 
and control over the whole nervous apparatus. 
Their constituent elements, like those of the tu- 
bercula quadrigemina, optic thalami, and angular 
gyri, are cells, containing nuclei and nucleoli, 
granules, interlacing fibres, investing membranes, 
connective tissue, and the like. Although these 
elements are the same as those of other nerve 
centres, it is evident from the functions they per- 
form that in some way, perhaps in quality or 
atomic arrangement, they differ from other gan- 
glia of the cerebrum. The difference, however, is 
of a character which no scalpel, lens, or analysis 
has been able to demonstrate, or can appreciate. 
In like manner, the various cell-groupings and 
cell-modifications, mechanical, chemical, thermal, 
)r dynamic, which, by inducing the development 
or inhibition of force, enable motion, thought, and 
volition to be manifested, may be guessed, but 
cannot be traced or mapped out. What has been 
said with regard to the hypothetical cell-group- 
ings and cell-modifications of the tubercula quad- 
rigemina, under the influence of visual impressions 



VISIONS. 127 

from the eye, is applicable to similar groupings 
in the frontal lobes, when such impressions are 
transferred or reported to them from the angular 

gy ri - 

Numerous connecting nerve fibres unite the 
visual centres of the hemispheres with the cells of 
the frontal lobes, to which all visual impressions, 
having been elaborated, classified, and carefully 
arranged in these centres, are immediately re- 
ported for inspection and ideation. The nerve 
fibres, which connect the. .angular gyri with the 
frontal lobes, serve not only to bear visual mes- 
sages from the former to the latter, but the re- 
verse. The effects of emotion, the results of in- 
tellection, and the decisions of the will, all of 
which receive their final elaboration, before their 
manifestation in action, in the cells of the frontal 
lobes, are felt, when they are concerned with vis- 
ible objects or visual ideas, with greater or less 
intensity, in the visual centres, and often aid in 
the revival of impressions in those centres. Mes- 
sages are thus sent along the connecting fibres be- 
tween the angular gyri and the frontal lobes in 
both directions, — to and from the gyri, and to 
and from the lobes. In the same way all the 
nerve centres of the body, and all the corporeal 
organs, communicate directly or indirectly with 
these lobes, so that not only the special senses of 
sight, hearing, taste, smell, and tact, but every 
organ and function report to these controlling 
ganglia. By this arrangement the frontal lobes 



128 VISIONS. 

are enabled to compare the reports from all parts 
of the organization with each other, and so to 
arrive at a sound judgment of the condition of the 
mechanism they govern, and of the external world 
with which they are thus brought into intimate 
and constant relation. Among these reports those 
from the angular gyri are of course included, and 
are corrected, when necessary, by comparison with 
the reports from other senses and organs. 

Sight is perfected, as we have seen, in the 
angular gyrus, the cerebral termination of the 
visual apparatus, from which the visual impres- 
sion is forwarded to the frontal lobes, where it is 
transformed into an idea. The cell-groupings 
of the gyrus, for example, being arranged into 
the cipher of a horse, report to the frontal lobes 
the presence of a horse ; the latter, receiving the 
report, immediately produce the idea of a horse. 
The action of the visual cells in the visual centre 
is a sensation, which, transferred to the cells of 
the frontal lobes, becomes an idea. The sensa- 
tion and the idea, however, are not identical, 
though one evolves the other. They are an il- 
lustration of what Mr. Bain calls the double- 
faced unity of mind and body. The angular 
gyrus presents the physical, and the frontal lobes 
give the mental side of a visual impression. 

In order to comprehend the phenomena of 
orthopia and pseudopia, it is important to keep 
the distinction between a visual sensation and a 
visual idea well in mind ; to remember that the 



visions. 129 

idea of an object is not identical with the visual 
sensation of the same object; that thinking is 
not seeing. The cell-groupings and action of 
the frontal lobes, by which visual ideas are mani- 
fested, are not the same as the cell -groupings 
and action of the angular gyri, by which fully 
elaborated visual sensations are manifested ; nor 
are the products the same. The common expres- 
sion, " I can see it with my mind's eye," recog- 
nizes this distinction. 

It has been stated that under the influence of 
habit, or association, or of both, cell-groupings 
may be revived in the visual centres of external 
objects, which are not objectively present to the 
eye. When this occurs, the frontal lobes receive 
the same visual report which they would receive 
if the objects were present. The lobes are de- 
ceived into the formation of visual ideas, without 
the presence of any objective reality. This is 
pseudopia. It is possible for the reverse to take 
place ; for an idea to assume such proportions of 
vividness and intensity as to send an impression 
down to the angular gyri, and evoke there a 
visual cell-grouping, independently of any stim- 
ulus from the eye. In this way visual impres- 
sions may travel in a circle from the lobes to the 
visual centres ; from the visual centres to the 
lobes ; from idea to sensation ; and back from 
sensation to idea : the whole being an intracra- 
nial process. We shall have occasion to call 
attention again, in another part of this essay, 

9 



130 VISIONS. 

to this physiological and psychological phenom- 
enon. 

The existence of different grades of perception 
in each of the intra-cranial visual centres has 
already been pointed out. It has been shown 
that when waves of light from a visible object 
impinge on the retina, there is no perception of 
the fact ; the cerebrum is not conscious of the 
phenomenon. When they reach the tubercula 
quadrigemina, perception is aroused ; conscious- 
ness recognizes the approach of the visual vibra- 
tions, by which the machinery of the tubercles 
is set in motion, but there is no perception of 
the details of the visual phenomena. When they 
reach the angular gyri, a still higher grade of 
perception is attained; the details of the visual 
telegram are perceived ; complete vision is ac- 
complished, with a corresponding perception of 
its completeness. When the completed vision 
penetrates into the cells of the frontal lobes, and 
is transformed into and connected with ideas, per- 
ception recognizes both the transformation and 
the intellectual and emotional activity, to which 
the transformation gives rise. Perception in the 
frontal lobes, therefore, is something more than 
perception in the angular gyri ; it is sensation 
and intellection. " The dynamic conditions of 
which the cells of the cortical periphery are capa- 
ble, represent, in a sensible form, clear and def- 
inite perceptions, — in other terms, acquired no- 
tions ; they represent, then, something more than 



VISIONS. 131 

simple perception ; they represent this, plus in- 
tellectual work. Acquired notions are organic- 
ally associated and classified in the cortical periph- 
ery of the brain ; and they can, by the activity 
of these cells, show themselves successively in the 
centre of perception. Hence, when a lesion has 
involved any point of the cortical periphery of 
the brain, the association of ideas may be dis- 
turbed ; and according to the nature of the le- 
sion (congestion, inflammation, or otherwise), 
there may appear the phenomena of excitement, 
mania, hallucination, the delirium of amnesia, or 
stupidity. According to this view, the centre of 
perception is placed between two sources of ex- 
citement, both of which set going its perceiving 
powers ; on one side, are the exgiting causes 
which reach it along the nerves ; on the other, 
are the exciting causes which reach it along the 
fibres of the white centre of the encephalon. By 
the first, it perceives the actual life of to-day ; 
by the second, it perceives how it felt and lived 
formerly." x 

What perception is in its essence we do not 
know, and from the nature of things it is not 
probable that the human mind ever will know. It 
is a vital product, but the mechanism of its pro- 
duction is a mystery ; no more of a mystery, how- 
ever, than many other vital products. Physiol- 

1 Dr. E. Fournie, Recherches Experimental.es, op. cit., p. 94 
Though Dr. Fournie is a physiologist whose statements and 
opinions must be received with caution, he is a suggestive writer, 
and his views are often striking and original. 



132 VISIONS. 

ogists can no more explain how the blood is 
transformed into a secretion like bile, or into an 
optical instrument like the retina, than they can 
how it is transformed into a cell, yielding percep- 
tion. " Perception is a vital, elementary, inde- 
composible phenomenon ; our knowledge of it 
does not go beyond this." Our ignorance of its 
nature, however, does not prevent our recognizing 
its existence, estimating its value, or determining 
its limitations. In the hemispheres, and especially 
in the frontal lobes of the brain, it attains its 
highest development and enjoys its largest range. 
There it becomes what Leibnitz called appercep- 
tion, or perception that reflects upon itself. When 
sensory ideas, whether visual, auditory, tactile, or 
other, enter the domain of self consciousness, they 
are studied in all their relations to the external 
world and to the ego. Thus investigation, which 
is apperception, is a function of the frontal lobes. 
It is clearly different from the simple perception 
of the existence of an object, without regard to 
its details, such as occuxs in the tubercula quad- 
rigemina, and to which perception in that centre 
is limited ; it is equally distinct from the percep- 
tion of the existence of an object, with a com- 
prehension of details, but without regard to the 
relations which the object sustains to other things, 
or to attendant conditions, such as occurs in the 
angular gyri, and to which perception in that 
centre is limited. Wundt illustrates this point by 
calling consciousness internal sight, which has 



VISIONS. 133 

like the eye, a definite field of vision. Upon this 
field of vision there is at any given moment a 
number of objects, to one of which attention is 
directed to the exclusion of others. The point to 
which attention is directed he calls the sight point. 
The field of vision is the territory of perception ; 
the sight point that of apperception. When an 
image enters the first territory it is perceived ; 
when it enters the second, it is apperceived. The 
visual process terminates, when the angular gyri 
have transmitted their report from the external 
world to the frontal lobes. The lobes accept 
this report, study it in all its relations, assimilate 
it and act upon it. A recognition of this distinction 
between the visual function of the angular gyri, 
and that of the lobes, is essential to a comprehen- 
sion of the phenomena of orthopia as well as of 
pseudopia. When light waves from an uplifted 
dagger fall on the retina, the eye records the'faets 
of color, size, position, motion, etc., and transmits 
an account of them to the tubercula quadrigemina. 
This centre carefully adjusts the mechanism of 
the eye, the iris, lenses, muscular apparatus and 
the like, to the demands of careful observation, 
coordinates the general muscular system for any 
movement the emergency may require, and makes 
its visual report to the angular gyrus. The latter 
centre receives the report, perceives all the details 
of the dagger, the hand grasping it, the face and 
action of the owner, whatever constitutes an exact 
picture of the scene, and transmits a correspond- 



134 visions. 

ing pictorial report to the frontal lobes. Upon re- 
ceiving this report — this pictorial representation, 
— the lobes look at it, ascertain its significance, 
determine whether the uplifted dagger is raised 
for inspection merely, or for a threatened or real 
plunge, or for other purposes, communicate with 
the instincts and emotions, and decide the will to 
act. 

It is evident from the foregoing statements, not 
only that sight is internal, or rather intracranial, 
being a function of the brain, not of the eye, but 
that internal seeing is of two kinds : one sensory, 
the other ideal ; one evolved and conditioned by 
the cells of the angular gyri, the other by those 
of the frontal lobes ; one photographing external 
objects without reflecting upon them, the other 
receiving the photographic impression and reflect- 
ing upon it ; one normally preceding the other, 
but with the possibility of a reversed order ; one 
being the mental vision of poets and artists, re- 
produced from the substrata of mental experience, 
the other the assured vision of seers and disor- 
dered brains, reproduced from antecedent sensory 
substrata ; one recognized by the subjects of it as 
subjective, the other by the subjects of it as ob- 
jective ; one known to be unreal, the other be- 
lieved to be real ; each influencing the other ; and 
both dependent upon and modified by cerebral and 
nutritive conditions. 

The intimate anatomical and physiological con- 
nection of the cerebral visual centres and frontal 



visions. 135 

lobes renders the reciprocal influence, just alluded 
to, extremely probable. Clinical and physiologi- 
cal ^observation confirms its existence, and asserts 
its importance. Vivid ideal pictures, painted by 
strong emotion or intense volitional effort on the 
organic structure of the frontal lobes, react on the 
visual centres of the hemispheres, and lead to the 
formation there of visual cell-groups, more or less 
perfect in character. These in turn visually ex- 
cite the lobes, and so by action and reaction add 
vividness and accuracy to the ideal representa- 
tions. " When we compare the anatomical rela- 
tion of the sensorium, on the one hand, to the cor- 
tical layer of the cerebrum, and on the other to 
that retinal expansion of ganglionic matter which 
is the recipient of visual impressions, we find the 
two to be so precisely identical, as to suggest that 
its physiological relation to those two organs must 
be the same. And as we only become conscious 
of the luminous impression by which nerve-force 
has been excited in the retina, when the transmis- 
sion of that nerve-force through the nerve of ex- 
ternal sense has excited a change in the sensorium, 
so it would seem probable that we onty become 
conscious of the further change excited in our 
cerebrum by the sensorial stimulus transmitted 
along its ascending fibres, when the reflection of 
the cerebral modification along its descending 
fibres — the nerves of the internal senses, — has 
brought it to react on the sensorium. In this 
point of view, the sensorium is the one centre of 



136 VISIONS. 

consciousness for visual impressions on the eye 
(and, by analogy, on the other organs of sense), 
and for ideational or emotional modifications in 
the cerebrum, — that is, in the one case, for sen- 
sations, when we become conscious of sense-im- 
pressions ; and, on the other, for ideas and emo- 
tions, when our consciousness has been affected by 
cerebral changes. According to this view, we no 
more think or feel with our cerebrum, than ^e see 
with our eyes ; but the ego becomes conscious 
through the same instrumentality of the retinal 
changes which are translated (as it were) by the 
sensorium into visual sensations, and of the cere- 
bral changes which it translates into ideas or 
emotions. The mystery lies in the act of transla- 
tion ; and is no greater in the excitement of idea- 
tional or emotional consciousness by cerebral 
change, than in the excitement of sensational con- 
sciousness by retinal change." 1 

Numerous examples might be given in illus- 
tration of this physiological interchange and re- 
inforcement of ideal and sensory intercranial pic- 
tures. The following is as remarkable as any. 
It is related by Dr. Abercrombie in his " Intellect- 
ual Powers," and quoted in Dr. Carpenter's " Men- 
tal Physiology : " " In the church of St. Peter, at 
Cologne, the altar-piece is a large and valuable 
picture by Rubens, representing the martyrdom 
of the apostle. This picture having been carried 
away by the French in 1805, to the great regret 

i Principles of Mental Physiology, by Wm. B. Carpenter, M. D., 
LL. D., etc. Am. ed. 1874, pp. 110, 111. 



visions. 137 

of the inhabitants, a painter of that city under- 
took to make a copy of it from recollection ; and 
succeeded in doing so in such a manner, that the 
most delicate tints of the original are preserved 
with the most minute accuracy. The original 
painting has now been restored, but the copy is 
preserved along with it ; and even when they are 
rigidly compared it is scarcely possible to distin- 
guish the one from the other." 

In this case cell-groupings, representing Ru- 
bens' picture, had been frequently called together 
% in the angular gyri of the Cologne artist by the 
visual stimulus of the picture ; and the impres- 
sions had been stamped into them by close and 
careful observation of it. Habit and association 
conspired to facilitate the assembling of the same 
visual groups. As often as a sensory picture had 
been formed in the cerebral visual centres, a cor- 
responding ideal picture was formed in the frontal 
lobes. Here, also, habit and association had facil- 
itated the formation of the same cell-groupings. 
Each group had learned to appear simultaneously, 
and to listen to each other's call. When the 
Cologne artist wished to recall and reproduce the 
original painting, to which he was denied access, 
his will summoned his ideal picture, that is, the 
cell-groupings of his frontal lobes corresponding 
to it, which assembled with greater or less fidelity 
at the call. These, when assembled, sent down 
along an efferent nerve a notice of their gathering 
to the angular gyri. The. cells of this centre, ac- 



188 VISIONS. 

customed to be grouped in a form representing 
the desired picture, assembled automatically, and 
sending up a visual stimulus by an afferent nerve, 
reinforced the efforts at cell formation of the 
frontal lobes. This process went on till a group- 
ing was formed in the angular gyri, which was 
the exact hieroglyphic of Rubens's painting. 
From this the artist reproduced the picture. He 
copied the copy in his brain, without the objective 
presence of the original work. 

Habit and association, including under these 
terms Bain's law of contiguity and Dr. Carpen- 
ter's law of similarity, are as powerful factors in 
the process of reviving cell-groupings, whether 
visual or other, in the frontal lobes, as they are in 
performing a similar office in the angular gyri. 
Their territory extends throughout the cortical 
cerebral layers, and embraces the cell-manifesta- 
tion of all forms of emotion, ideation, and volition, 
as well as the translation of special sense messages 
or images into ideal ones. The method of their 
action and the aid they render in the revival and 
reproduction of past impressions have been suf- 
ficiently described already ; and the description 
may be applied, mutatis mutandis, as accurately 
to their influence over cell activity in the lobes, 
as in the visual centres. There are other factors 
than habit and association, however, which ren- 
der essential service in the process of re-presenting 
old impressions as well as in that of intensifying 
the action of new ones ; and which, while they 



visions. 139 

exert an influence over mental manifestations in 
the gray matter of the whole cerebral mass, find 
their most important and most mysterious sphere 
in the frontal lobes. These are, emotion, expect- 
ant attention, automatism, blood-supply, including 
nutrition, drugs, disease, and volition. 

Emotion, in proportion to its strength, gives 
vividness and intensity to every cerebral impres- 
sion. Hope, fear, love, hate, desire, aversion, ad- 
miration, contempt, hunger, thirst, and the like, 
all in varying degrees, deepen the impression 
which objects, associated with these emotions, im- 
print upon the cells of the brain. When strong 
feeling is connected with any person or thing, a 
single look at whoever or whatever so stirs the 
heart is sufficient to produce an effect upon the 
cell-structure of the angular gyri and frontal lobes, 
more definite and permanent than a thousand su- 
perficial glances at indifferent objects could bring 
about. Emotion is the force which strikes the 
die deep into the cells, whereon are engraved the 
pictorial and other sensory records of the mind, 
and moulds the structure through which ideas flow 
and volition acts. It is the stimulus which makes 
the brain catch the fleeting colors, and sharp or 
shadowy outlines and expressions of the objective 
world, and the heat which burns them into the 
sensitized plates of the centres of special sense and 
corresponding tissues of the lobes. 

The influence of emotion over certain parts of 
the organization, where its action can be recog- 



140 VISIONS. 

nized and is acknowledged, affords both an indi- 
cation and illustration of the great influence it 
may exert over the delicate and mobile structures 
of the brain. There is apparently no part of the 
body, placed more completely out of the reach of 
the waves of emotion than the hair ; yet emotion 
has blanched the hair in less than twenty-four 
hours. One of the best known and most striking 
instances of this phenomenon occurred in the per- 
son of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. "Be- 
fore the fatal day arrived," says M. Jules Janin, 
" the queen asked for a priest ; the republic sent 
her one of its own, whom the queen refused to see 
and knelt alone before her God. At last the day 

of her deliverance came She arranged her 

lovely hair for the last time, and shuddered to 
find it had grown perfectly white in her last twen- 
ty-four hours." The inexpressible dread and 
agony, attendant upon her terrible situation and 
approaching execution, probably induced at the 
base of the queen's brain a hyperemia of some of 
the vaso-motor centres. As a result of this con- 
gestion, the circulation through the hairy scalp 
was inhibited and the hair suffered ; a striking 
testimony to the power of intense emotion over 
the human organization. The blush of gratified 
pride and of offended modesty, the pale face of 
anger and the cutis anserina of terror, all testify 
to the same power. 

The following instance shows that intense emo- 
tion may go so far as to change the quality of the 



VISIONS. 141 

olood and destroy life. " A young and beautiful 
woman in the middle rank of life, highly but self- 
educated, of great mental endowment, of admira- 
ble taste, and strong sensibility and attachment, 
was unconsciously the one by whose hand a poi- 
sonous dose was administered to her sole surviving 
parent, to whom she was attached with all the 
fervor and devoted ness of a daughter's love. The 
phial contained an ounce and a half of laudanum ; 
it was given by mistake for a senna draught. 
When presented to him by his daughter, he tasted 
it, and said he did not like it and would not take 
it. He had not been in good health ; it was with 
much entreaty he was ever prevailed on to take 
the medicines prescribed. She urged him in 
terms the most affectionate and persuasive to take 
his draught ; he replied, ; Dearest, you know I 
never can refuse you anything,' and swallowed it. 
Three hours passed away before she was aware 
of her terrible mistake. She was aroused to it 
by the state of stupor into which her father had 
fallen, when it flashed across her mind. She found 
the senna draught which she had intended to have 
given untouched ; she also found the word ' poison ' 
printed in large letters on the empty phial. The 
shock to her mind was terrific. She became like 
one insane. All possible means were employed 
to save the life of the poisoned man, but they 
were employed too late. He died profoundly 
comatose at the end of a few hours. From the 
moment of his last breath a change came over 



142 VISIONS. 

her. She was lost to all knowledge or notice 
of persons and occurrences around ; she lay like 
a statue, pale and motionless. Food she never 
took, excepting when it was placed upon her 
tongue. The only sound which escaped her lips 
was a faint yes or no. When asked what ailed 
her, she would place her hand upon her heart. 
Her extremities were cold. She sighed and shiv- 
ered frequently, and dozed brokenly and protract- 
edly. To her, the world, and all things in it, 
were a blank. Tonics and stimulants were ad- 
ministered, air and scene were changed, kind and 
compassionate relatives and friends tried and tried 
in vain to rouse and console ; she pined away, and 
nought but a breathing skeleton remained. She 
lingered on with very little variety or alteration 
of symptoms for ten months. Before her dissolu- 
tion she became oedematous. The swelling, soft 
and transparent, was first perceived in the lower 
extremities, but gradually progressed upwards. 
It became apparent on the backs of the hands, 
along the arms, and ultimately it was universal. 
All the viscera, spinal, cerebral, thoracic, and ab- 
dominal, were patiently and minutely examined. 
Nc trace of organic change of structure could be 

detected This poor patient, beaten down 

in mind and body, breathed her last without a 
moan or a painful struggle. The mental shock 
had paralyzed the vital actions, an evidence that 
in real life events do occur which transcend even 
the highest flights of fiction. An almost total sus- 



VISIONS. 143 

pension of nutrition, sanguification, and vascular 
energy characterized this case. The result was 
universal dropsy consisting in the thinnest seros- 

ity." 1 

Such is the influence of emotion, when intensely 
excited, over parts of the organization which are 
ordinarily very little, or not at all affected by it. 
If it possesses such power over organs with which 
it is only remotely connected, it is difficult to as- 
sign any limits to its influence over the nervous 
centres themselves, with which it is intimately 
associated. Hence we can understand how it 
may force the impression of a look or object, of a 
face or deed, seen but once, so deeply into a group 
of cells in the visual compartments of the brain, 
that half a century or more of subsequent life 
shall not efface it. My own experience furnishes 
an illustration of this statement. When a child, 
between two and three years old, so young that 
some have doubted if I could remember the event 
about to be recorded, a visitor at my father's 
house in the country committed suicide, by shoot- 
ing himself through the head. He managed the 
matter so that the ball, entering probably by his 
mouth, passed out through the back of his head, 
and through the hat which he wore at the time. 
I have only an indistinct recollection of the ex- 
citement, confusion, and horror which, naturally 
attendant upon such an event any where, would be 
exaggerated in a quiet country place. My child- 

1 Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medicine, August 1, 1853, p. l,etc 



144 VISIONS. 

ish curiosity and wonder, with a sort of name- 
less dread, were, of course, raised to their high- 
est pitch ; they seized hold of a single picture, and 
burnt it into the cell structure of my brain so 
deeply, that the lapse of more than fifty years 
have not effaced it. That picture was the hole in 
the victim's hat, made by the passage of the fatal 
ball. As I write these lines I can see the hole, 
with fuzz or fur sticking out around it, as if elec- 
trified, as distinctly as if the event had occurred 
yesterday. All other attendant circumstances, the 
confusion, the blood, the corpse, and the ghastli- 
ness of death, have faded away, but the hole with 
its fringe of projecting fur remains. There are 
times when that hole, unthought of and uncalled 
for, comes strangely before me. A black hat in a 
crowd, one among a thousand similar ones, will, 
why I know not, sometimes possess that hole. It 
may appear in a dream, or be seen at a dinner 
party or a club, where some one tells the story of 
a suicide ; or be drawn into my field of subjective 
vision by a force, of which the character and 
source are alike undiscovered and undiscoverable. 
Emotion by a single blow stamped the visual rec- 
ord of that hole and hat indelibly into a group of 
cerebral cells, and the record has for half a century 
since occasionally obtruded itself into the sphere 
of consciousness, or been now and then pushed up 
there by some recondite association. 

Emotion, which is so influential in fixing visual 
and other impressions on the cerebral structures, 



VISIONS. 145 

is not less efficient in facilitating the process by 
whifch old impressions are revived and reproduced. 
It enlarges the power and quickens the action of 
habit and association, so that under its stimulus 
both of these forces, which play so important a 
part in re-presenting antecedent sensory images, 
work with increased rapidity and accuracy. A lu- 
dicrous scene, witnessed by half a dozen individ- 
uals, will provoke a degree of laughter in each 
one, varying with his emotional state at the time; 
and upon each one's emotional state, at some sub- 
sequent period, will depend the vividness with 
which the original scene and corresponding laugh- 
ter can be reproduced. Sir Walter Scott recog- 
nized the power of emotion over the organization, 
by making Brian de Bois-Guilbert fall dead from 
his horse, without a wound, before the lance of 
his enfeebled and hated rival, Ivanhoe. He also 
recognized its power in reviving pictures of the 
past, when he made Sir George Staunton recall, 
after years of absence and in a moment of excite- 
ment, " the Grindstone," and " the white rock in 
line with the steeple." " By G — , I think your 
honor kens the bay as weel as me," was the vet- 
eran boatman's emphatic testimony to the ac- 
curacy with which Sir George's brain rediscov- 
ered the land and water marks of the scene of 
his youthful follies and crimes. Who has not 
learned from experience how vividly some sudden 
emotion, joy or grief, will produce an ideal pic- 
ture of the past, making the present less real 
10 



146 VISIONS. 

than former scenes ? A bereaved mother, look- 
ing upon a photograph, or it may be only upon a 
lock of hair of a deceased son or daughter, will 
see her loved one's face as if alive. Love and 
grief, reinforcing the power of association, will so 
stimulate her ideational and visual centres, as to 
revive cell-groups which represented her living 
child. Volition is generally intensified by emo- 
tion. The blow of an angry or terrified will is 
more quick and violent than that of quiet de- 
termination. Yet the opposite may be the case. 
Timidity, shame, and modesty may paralyze 
effort. In seeking for an explanation of the phe- 
nomena of pseudopia, so far as the will affords 
any light, the law, not the exception to it, must 
be borne in mind, that emotion modifies volition 
in the direction of intensifying the latter. 

Expectant attention is volition, modified by 
emotion in the way just described, and is an im- 
portant factor in facilitating many of the proc- 
esses of perception and ideation. It does not so 
much initiate ideas, as it prepares the way for 
their evolution. It polarizes the cerebral cells in 
the direction of some desired result, whether sen- 
sory or ideal. Whatever the mind desires is more 
likely to be attained under its influence than 
apart from it. This is true not only of what may 
be called legitimate mental operations, but of 
illusory perceptions. Its greatest power is man- 
ifested in the revival and reproduction of cell- 
groups in the nervous centres, which have been 



visions. 147 

previously and frequently formed there, and of 
the corresponding ideal and sensory pictures. 
When attention is exerted for the purpose, and 
with the expectation of seeing a familiar object, 
or attaining a familiar end, the object is far more 
likely to appear and the end to be reached, than 
if no such purpose existed, or no such expectation 
was raised. 

The influence of expectant attention in facil- 
itating certain processes of the organization, or 
as an assistant in the accomplishment of certain 
ends, has long been recognized by physicians, 
and applied by them in therapeutics. Its power 
over the body as a therapeutic agent illustrates, 
and to some extent explains, its action in the 
higher nervous centres. " Medicines," says one 
of the most cautious and accurate American med- 
ical writers, " as a general rule, will act with 
greater certainty when their legitimate effects are 
known and expected. An emetic will be more 
likely to vomit, if the patient anticipate this ef- 
fect from it. The cooperation of faith with the 
medicine will often favor its action. This is 
more especially true when the nervous system 
is prominently concerned. The full belief in the 
efficacy of quinia in intermittent diseases aids 
considerably in the prevention of paroxysm." l 
Surgeons are familiar with the physiological fact, 
and act upon it, that an individual will come 

1 A Treatise on Therapeutics and Pharmacology, or Materia Med' 
ica } by George B. Wood, M. D., etc., etc., vol. i., p. 40. 



148 VISIONS. 

more rapidly, pleasantly, and effectually under 
the anaesthetic influence of ether, if he expects 
to be made insensible, and gives himself up to 
the inhalation of the vapor, than if he is in an 
opposite condition. In this particular instance, 
expectant attention is of great practical impor- 
tance. Sometimes its power over the system is 
such as to obtain extraordinary results from the 
administration of medicines. I once gave ten 
grains of Dover's powder to a stout hearty Irish 
woman at night as an anodyne. She expected a 
cathartic, supposed she had taken a cathartic, and 
was determined to have a cathartic result. Hav- 
ing previously taken some laxative preparation of 
her own prescribing, without avail, she was all 
the more anxious for the success of this. When 
I made my visit the next day, she met me with 
a beaming countenance, and in glowing Celtic 
phrase expressed her gratitude for the happy re- 
sult which had been attained. The usual phys- 
iological action of Dover's powder had been an- 
tagonized by attention to an expected result. 

Expectant attention involves sympathy, hope, 
belief, faith, and imitation ; and to a large extent 
achieves its results, in reviving by-gone images 
and ideas, by the aid of these emotions. Imag- 
ination is also an important factor in this pro- 
cess, and is intimately connected with emotional 
states, though very different from them. Com- 
bined with them, it adds extraordinary energy to 
the power of expectant attention, and enables it 



visions. 149 

to attain its greatest and most mysterious mar- 
vels. " When a person on swallowing a bread- 
pill, in the belief that it possesses aperient proper- 
ties, is purged, it is said to be through his imag- 
ination ; the mental condition present yielding, 
on analysis, a definite direction of thought to the 
intestinal canal ; such leading idea exciting the 
same peristaltic action as would have been in- 
duced by castor-oil. The force of this current of 
thought is augmented by expectation. The other 
day a lady nurse at the Plymouth Hospital told 
me of a patient in one of the female wards, who 
was much disconcerted at the doctor having left 
the hospital without ordering an aperient pill, as he 
had intended to do. The nurse procured a bread- 
pill, and satisfied her mind. Next day she found, 
on inquiry, that it had answered its purpose satis- 
factorily. Again, I hold a ruler in my hand, and 
puint it to a painful region of the body of a pa- 
tient who entertains the opinion that I am about 
to relieve the pain. The patient imagining that 
the ruler will be the means of curing her, believes 
in a force which does not exist, — a curative power 
passing from the ruler to the body, — and is re- 
lieved. That she is relieved is no imagination. 
What cured her ? Merely to say it was the im- 
agination is no solution of the problem. What 
really happened was that her attention was ar- 
rested and forcibly directed to the part, the prom- 
inent idea being the firm conviction. that the mor- 
bid symptoms would pass away. In other cases 



150 VISIONS. 

the fixed idea may be, on the contrary, that cer- 
tain phenomena will occur : that there will be pain, 
or redness of the skin, or loss of muscular power, 
and should these supervene, we say, as before, it 
was due to the imagination. This medical use 
of the term has for its basis that thinking upon 
an object which, as Dugald Stewart points out, 
is used by Shakespeare as synonymous with the 
imagination, when he speaks of ' thinking ' on 
the frosty Caucasus, the ' apprehension ' of the 
good, and the 'imagination' of a feast." 1 

From this account of the power of expectant 
attention oyer organs and functions, which lie 
remote from the cerebral nerve centres, we can 
form some notion of its influence over these cen- 
tres themselves. Indeed, it is probably through 
its influence over these, that it produces the ef- 
fects which have been described. It would exceed 
the limits of the present essay to describe the full 
extent of this influence ; for our purpose it is suffi- 
cient, here, to emphasize the fact and character of 
its action upon the visual, auditory, and ideational 
centres ; upon these, it acts efficiently, aiding the 
force of habit, association, and emotion in the re- 
vival of old cell-groupings, and the consequent re- 
production of past images and ideas. One who 
expects to see the face of a departed friend or 
child, around which are clustered the deepest and 
tenderest emotions of the human heart, and with 

1 Influence of the Mind on the Body, by Daniel Hack Tuke, 
M D., etc., etc. Am. ed. 1872, pp. 19, 20. 



VISIONS. 151 

which are associated life's hopes and disappoint- 
ments and deeds, is placed in the most favorable 
condition for the formation of cell-groups, capa- 
ble of bringing the familiar face within the field 
of subjective vision. Under such circumstances 
the most remote suggestions and shadowy traces 
of resemblance are sometimes sufficient to produce 
an ideal vision, or even a sensory representation. 
When Polonius, at Hamlet's bidding, saw a cloud 
assume the likeness of a whale, he illustrated a 
profound physiological law as well as the obsequi- 
ous subservience of a courtier. 

Automatism, that is, automatic or reflex action, 
has been described in the earlier part of this mon- 
ograph as a contrivance of the nervous system, by 
means of which most of the phenomena of life are 
accomplished. Some physiologists assert that 
even the highest functions of the cerebrum are 
performed through its agency. Without accepting 
the latter statement to its full extent, it is clear 
that all the ganglia, spinal, sympathetic, cerebellar, 
and cerebral, are subject to its power, and that it is 
difficult, perhaps impossible, to define or limit its 
jurisdiction. It is unnecessary to repeat the de- 
scription, previously given, of reflex action ; but 
without doing so, it is important, in this connec- 
tion, to call attention to what may be called ac- 
quired automatism, or the power, which the nerv- 
ous apparatus gains, after persistent effort in any 
given direction, of doing that easily, automatically, 
and almost unconsciously, which, at first, was 



152 VISIONS. 

difficult, volitional, and conscious. The facility 
which the human mechanism acquires of perform- 
ing, with apparent spontaneity, the complex acts 
of walking, talking, handicraft, and the like, are 
familiar illustrations of this fact. Our hands and 
feet, when instructed and trained, acquire the 
power of acting as if they were independent 
beings ; so do our eyes and ears, though we are 
less accustomed to recognize the automatic action 
of the latter than of the former. An eye, trained 
to watch and guide the movements of a shuttle 
or needle, acquires a marvellous facility of auto- 
matic action in doing so. The cells of the motor 
centres, which coordinate and govern locomotion, 
are so frequently grouped together for that ob- 
ject, that they assemble on the slightest hint, and 
when assembled possess an acquired power of act- 
ing automatically. In like manner, certain cells 
of the visual centres are often grouped together 
by the frequent presentation of the same object 
to the eye, and the visual groups thus formed 
acquire, at length, the power of transmitting a 
visual message to the frontal lobes, automatically, 
that is, with very little regard, or possibly no re- 
gard, to the objective presentation. If it should 
t30 happen, as it sometimes will, that a particular 
visual group, the hieroglyphic of a familiar face, 
for example, should be called together by some 
remote association or intense emotion, in the way 
previously described, the group would act auto- 
matically by virtue of its acquired automatism, 



visions. 153 

and spontaneously send up a visual report to a 
higher station. Under such circumstances, an in- 
dividual, like the Cologne artist, would have sub- 
jective but not objective vision. 

Association utters a call for the assembling of a 
cerebral cell-group ; habit enables it to form with 
facility ; emotion imparts distinctness to it ; ex- 
pectant attention anticipates and urges its appear- 
ance ; automatism gives it power to act ; and the 
ideational centres welcome and utilize the result. 

The laws or modes of cerebral activity, which 
have hitherto been considered on account of their 
intimate connection with the phenomena of pseud- 
opia, are some of the laws, perhaps the principal 
ones, which the brain exhibits in its normal con- 
dition. They are necessarily more or less modified 
in their operation, by any abnormal condition of 
that organ. Any change of nerve structure, or 
alteration of the quantity or quality of blood cir- 
culating through the cerebral tissues, and conse- 
quently of their nutrition, involves a correspond- 
ing change in the manifestations of cell-power. 
Any or all of these manifestations may be in- 
creased or diminished or abolished, by organic 
or functional cerebral changes. Hence it becomes 
necessary to describe, as briefly as the object be- 
fore us will permit, the mutual relations of blood 
and brain. The subject is a large and important 
one. Only a few salient points, which bear di- 
rectly upon our purpose, can be touched upon 
here. 



154 visions. 



A most interesting anatomical fact arrests our 
attention, as soon as we glance at the relation of 
blood and brain to each other. That fact is the 
enormous amount of blood, furnished to the brain 
and consumed there, in comparison with the 
amount sent to the rest of the body. "In the 
case of man, although the brain has not ordinarily 
more than about one fortieth of the weight of the 
body, yet it is estimated to receive from one sixth 
to one fifth of the whole circulating blood." 1 
There is, of course, an object in supplying the 
brain with such a wealth of blood, the costliest 
compound of the organization, and that object is 
apparent, when we reflect that the blood is the 
life of the body, and consequently of every organ 
in the body. Wherever the largest amount of 
blood is present and consumed, there will always 
be found the greatest functional and organic ac- 
tivity. Vital manifestations are proportional to 
blood consumption. In the brain, where the high- 
est forms of such manifestations, sensation, idea- 
tion, and volition are exhibited, the most blood is 
consumed. The cell-groupings and cell-modifica- 
tions, the organization and destruction of proto- 
plasmic material for the evolution of force, the 
transmission of visual reports from one visual 
centre to another, the transformation of sensory 
pictures into ideas, and all the complicated phe- 
nomena, attending the process of vision from ob- 
jective to subjective sight, to which such constant 
1 Principles of Mental Physiology, by W. B. Carpenter, p. 38. 



VISIONS. 155 

reference has been made in these pages, all de- 
pend on the blood as their source and supply of 
energy. Sensation, ideation, and volition are as 
dependent on the quantity and quality of cerebral 
blood supply, as electricity is upon the quantity 
and quality of the fluid which supplies the bat- 
tery generating it. 

Blood performs a triple function in the develop- 
ment of nerve force. It affords to nerve struc- 
tures material for the metamorphosis which goes 
on in them unceasingly while life continues ; it 
supplies oxygen, by the action of which on nerve 
structures force is developed ; and it removes the 
waste which metamorphosis of tissue and utiliza- 
tion of force necessitate. A diminished quantity of 
blood passing through the ganglionic nerve centres, 
visual and others, produces as a rule an inactive 
condition in them, so that they respond less readily 
than usual to their appropriate stimuli. An in- 
creased quantity, passing through their capilla- 
ries — hyperemia — is followed or accompanied 
by greater nerve -activity and corresponding aug- 
mentation of susceptibility to stimuli. When the 
abstraction of blood is carried so far as to drain it 
all, or nearly all away, complete abolition of nerve 
power — of sensation, thought, and volition — is 
produced ; and the same result follows an exces- 
sive flow of blood into the intra-cranial capillaries, 
leading to congestion with pressure or extravasa- 
tion. If either the abstraction of blood from the 
cerebral nerve centres, or its flow into them, passes 



156 visions. 

certain tolerably well defined limits, all manifesta- 
tions of nerve force are suspended or rendered 
impossible. Within these limits, an abnormal 
diminution of blood circulating through the brain, 
excepting in some diseased states, represses, and 
the opposite augments these manifestations. 

The mysterious physiological process of meta- 
morphosis of tissue, goes on in the brain as well 
as in all other parts of the organization, and there- 
fore measures correlated mental activity, as accu- 
rately as it measures the secretion of bile in the 
liver, or muscular effort in the muscles. Cere- 
bral, like muscular metamorphosis, requires oxygen 
for its performance. Metamorphosis results from 
combustion. Hence if the blood, without being 
deficient in quantity, is poor in oxygen, there will 
be diminished metamorphosis, and corresponding 
inactivity of the cerebral ganglia. The visual 
centres are not exempt from this law. The due 
performance of their functions depends upon the 
destructive and constructive metamorphosis of 
their peculiar structures, and this upon the oxy- 
gen which they derive from the blood. Called 
ganglia, they are delicate furnaces of marvellous 
construction, constantly supplied with combustible 
matter, which, kindled by rays or waves of light, 
reaching them from visible objects through the 
burning retina, furnish heat, by means of which 
the process of vision is rendered possible, sensory 
impressions are transformed into ideal images, and 
the latter made the substrata of thought and voli- 



visions. 157 

tion. For all these purposes, a continual supply 
of oxygen from the blood is as essential as the 
oxygen of the atmosphere is to the sparkling of a 
fire-fly, the combustion of coal, or the flash of ar- 
tillery. The curious change of force from waves 
of light to those of thought, by the aid of oxygen, 
has many analogies in the transformations of the 
world about us, especially in the changes resulting 
from the correlation of force. Mr. W. R. Grove 
devised an ingenious and elegant experiment which 
illustrates this statement. He arranged a box 
filled with water, in which was enclosed a prepared 
daguerreotype plate, a gridiron of silver wire, a 
galvanometer coil, a Brequet's helix, and a set of 
needles, in such a way that as soon as light, by 
raising the shutter of the box, was allowed to im- 
pinge on the plate, there was produced, light being 
the initiating force, " chemical action on the plate, 
electricity circulating through the wires, magnet- 
ism in the coil, heat in the helix, and motion in 
the needles." * What began as an image on the 
plate became motion in the needles. So in the 
process of vision, what begins as an image, initi- 
ated by light on the retina, results as thought in 
the frontal ganglia. We know as little of the 
precise nature of the process in the one case as in 
the other. We see the phenomena, but not the 
working of the mechanism by which the results 
are attained. If, in Mr. Grove's experiment, the 

1 Correlation and Conservation of Forces, by E. L. Youmans, 
M. D., p. 117. 



158 visions. 

initial force had been electricity in the wires, or 
heat in the helix, instead of light on the plate, 
the result — motion of the needles — would have 
been the same. In the mechanism of vision, if, 
by some abnormal condition of the cerebral struc- 
tures or circulation, or by some action on the deli- 
cate elements of the brain of the modifying influ- 
ences just described, or by some subtle change in 
oxygenation, the initial force, instead of being the 
ordinary one of light impinging on the retina, 
should be one producing a visual group in the 
tubercula quadrigemina or angular gyri, the result 
of ideation in the frontal lobes would be the same. 
The ego would not be cognizant of the initial 
point. 

" Thus, then, the dependence of nervous power and of 
mental activity upon the physical changes kept up by 
the circulation of oxygenated blood through the brain, 
can be shown experimentally to be just as direct and 
immediate, as is the dependence of the electric activity 
of a galvanic battery upon the analogous changes taking 
place between its metals and its exciting liquid. And 
if we say that electricity is the expression of chemical 
change in the one case, how can we refuse to regard 
thought as the expression of chemical change in the 
other ? This view is not here advanced as explaining 
any mental phenomenon. No physicist would say that 
he can ' explain ' how it is that electricity is generated 
by chemical change; but he knows that such a relation 
of cause and effect exists between the two orders of 
phenomena, that every chemical change is accompanied 
by a disturbance of electricity; and thus, whenever he 






visions. 159 

witnesses electric disturbance, he is led to look for some 
chemical change as its physical cause. And in precisely 
the same sense, and no other, the physiologist must re- 
gard some change in the substance of the brain as the 
immediate physical antecedent of all automatic mental 
action. It is the attribute of the Will to utilize this 
automatic power of the brain, as it utilizes that of the 
muscles ; and thus to make the ego, in proportion as he 
has acquired the mastery over it, a free agent." 1 

Inasmuch as the greater includes the less, it 
follows that what Dr. Carpenter, in the above 
extract, has asserted of the whole brain must be 
equally true of the visual centres, which are com- 
ponent parts of it. And this is in accordance 
with the whole doctrine of the preceding pages. 

Besides supplying material for constructive 
metamorphosis, and oxygen to enable metamor- 
phosis to go on, the blood performs the third 
office of removing from the cerebral ganglia the 
waste products of their labor. It keeps the visual 
workshops of the retina, the tubercula quadrigem- 
ina, angular gyri, and frontal lobes, as well as 
all other cerebral laboratories, clean, so that they 
are always in good working order. The refuse is 
the result of the transformation of cell-contents, 
granules, protoplasmic stuff, and whatever other 
elements enter into the formation of visual cell- 
groups, and are necessary to the generation of 
force, utilized in the transmission of visual re- 
ports to all parts of the nervous system with which 

1 Mental Physiology, by W. B. Carpenter, p. 40. 



160 VISIONS. 

vision is associated. This waste is represented 
by various oxy-compounds of carbon, hydrogen, 
phosphorus, and the like, which replace in the 
veins returning from the brain free oxygen, carried 
thither by the arteries. The effect on the brain of 
the retention of these waste products by the cere- 
bral circulation is well shown in certain forms 
of disease producing mental torpor, insensibility, 
and, in extreme cases, death by asphyxia. It is 
possible, — and perhaps clinical observation would 
warrant the statement without reservation, — that 
what thus occurs as a general affection of the 
whole brain, may, under favorable conditions, oc- 
cur as a local affection of a limited portion of 
the cerebral mass, like one of the sensory or idea- 
tional centres. Local cerebral affections, the re- 
sult of local cerebral causes, are of not infrequent 
occurrence. A tumor pressing on the tubercula 
quadrigemina will cause blindness. Inflammation, 
limited to the same territory, may lead to the 
same result, without deranging the mental faculties, 
or the functions of the sensory ganglia. A poison 
in the blood, resulting from the retention of waste 
products, may spend its morbid force chiefly upon 
one of the encephalic organs. Excessive use of one 
or more of the visual workshops, by which their 
working capital is consumed more rapidly than it 
is supplied, and more rapidly than the waste is 
removed, may gradually lead to deterioration of 
their power ; or may induce conditions which will 
enable them to fabricate and transmit false visual 



VISIONS. 161 

reports. This point will be more fully discussed 
in another place. 

Attention has* already been called to the ana- 
tomical fact that the brain is not, as it was for- 
merly supposed to be, a single organ, but on the 
contrary a congeries of organs. " The encephalon," 
says Charcot, " does not represent one homoge- 
neous organ, but rather an association or, if you 
prefer the term, a federation, composed of a cer- 
tain number of diverse organs. To each of these 
organs there are physiologically attached certain 
characteristics, -functions, and distinct faculties. 
Now the physiological characteristics of each of 
these parts being known, it would be possible to 
deduce from them the conditions of their patho- 
logical state, the latter being only a modification, 
more or less pronounced, of their normal state, 
without the intervention of new laws." 1 Such be- 
ing the architecture of the brain, it is easy to un- 
derstand that the circulation of blood through it, 
and especially through its capillaries, would natu- 
rally be proportioned, as it is in other parts of the 
body, to the size and functional importance of the 
organs to which it is distributed. In fact the 
brain is not only furnished, as we have seen, with 
a larger proportional amount of blood than any 
other part of the body, but its different organs 
receive different proportional amounts. The dis- 
tribution is unequal. The gray cerebral matter 

1 Lecons sur les Localisations dans les Maladies da Cerveau. 
par J. M. Charcot, Professeur, etc., p. 3. Paris, 1876. 
11 



162 visions. 

is richer in blood than the white ; the ganglionic 
nerve centres are richer than the commissures. 
Moreover, the natural inequality of distribution is 
increased by exercise. Just as the exercise of a 
particular muscle, or set of muscles, attracts more 
blood to them than circulates through the rest of 
the muscular system, so mental exercise causes 
more blood to flow through the cerebral organs 
exercised, than through other parts of the brain. 
And as the continued use of a set of muscles for 
months and years, within due physiological limits, 
hypertrophies and strengthens them by increasing 
their vascularity and nutrition, so the continued 
physiological use of one or more intra-cranial or- 
gans develops them, by endowing them with a 
larger number, or greater size, or better quality of 
elements composing them. The biceps of a car- 
penter, blacksmith, or athlete, at the end of ten 
or twenty years of bicipital exercise is a different, 
stronger, and more obedient muscle than it was 
before its training began, or than the biceps of a 
student or clerk is apt to be ; in like manner, the 
angular gyri and ideational cells of one trained to 
visual effort, are different organs, because more 
developed and of a higher power, than are the 
visual ganglia of artisans and farmers. The visual 
apparatus of an expert microscopist will discern, 
through an objective of a 2V or -^q power, symmet- 
rical forms and harmonious movements, where 
•in unskilled observer's eye will see only an un- 
meaning or chaotic mass. A person who has 



VISIONS. 163 

trained his visual ganglia to act under the influ- 
ence of the subjective stimuli of volition, associa- 
tion, habit, expectant attention, automatism, and 
the like, will sometimes succeed in producing what 
may be called a local visual hyperemia, and so 
attain surprising results — results which inexpert 
experimenters cannot accomplish, and which to 
the uninitiated seem to partake of the supernat- 
ural. 

In the physical, as in the moral world, what- 
ever is capable of good is equally capable of evil. 
The germs of blessing and cursing are wrapped 
up in the same cell, and each may be developed 
after its kind. Strychnia, which, appropriately ad- 
ministered, will lead the nervous system to healthy 
issues more kindly and rapidly than an} 7 other 
drug, and without leaving a trace of ill behind, 
possesses a deadly power, which makes its name a 
sound of terror. Opium, one of the great blessings 
of the human race, and one without which medi- 
cal art would be almost impossible, — an agent so 
useful that its chief active principle well deserves 
its name, derived from that of an ancient divin- 
ity, — is endowed with poisonous properties, equal 
to its sanative virtues. It can protect, or it can 
cut life's silver cord. So in the human system : 
training and exercise can render an organ, or a set 
of organs, equally capable of good and evil ; of 
health and disease ; of honest and of dishonest work. 
As a microscopist may train his retina to photo- 
graph, his tubercula quadrigemina to classify, his 



164 VISIONS. 

angular gyri to perceive, and his frontal lobes to 
apperceive an objective world, invisible to others ; 
so a visionist may train his • angular gyri and 
frontal lobes to act independently of the retina 
and tubercula quadrigemina, and form visual cell- 
groups, which, composed of old cell-groups and 
modifications, will enable him to perceive and 
apperceive a subjective world, real to him alone. 
Thus the visual apparatus of the human brain, a 
mechanism of which the delicacy and power has 
only been imperfectly portrayed in the foregoing 
pages, intended to report with wonderful accuracy 
and minuteness the external world to the Ego, 
may be trained to do dishonest work with equal 
faithfulness, so as to turn objective into subjective 
sight, orthopia into pseudopia, and to make the 
Ego the fool of the brain. 

It appears from these statements that blood 
supplies material, which enables the cerebral ma- 
chinery to act, or, to use an expressive French 
term for which there is no English equivalent, — 
to functionate. Blood is not the mechanism, but 
it is the mechanism's working force. As an en- 
gineer, by turning a stream of water upon the 
wheel of a mill, or a current of steam upon the 
piston of an engine, puts the whole machinery in 
action, so when light from a visible object stimu- 
lates the visual ganglia, and turns or draws a 
current of blood upon them, or, possibly, when 
volition, representing the Ego, or association, or 
emotion, or some other cerebral force, performs 



VISIONS. 165 

the same office, the visual apparatus is set in 
motion and sight results. The relation, then, of 
blood to brain, and of course to each organ which 
goes to make up the brain, is that of force to 
mechanism ; and if the force, however initiated, is 
properly applied, the mechanism will functionate. 
Blood flowing through a set of ganglia, however, 
like those of the visual apparatus, is more than 
the force of water turning a mill-wheel, or than 
that of steam moving a piston : it not only moves 
the machinery, but it keeps the machinery in 
repair. Nutrition is therefore included in the re- 
lations of blood and brain, and is so intimately as- 
sociated with the circulation, that the former can- 
not be disconnected from the latter. Such being 
the case, it is unnecessary to refer to the influence 
of nutrition upon the process or mechanism of 
vision. Its influence has already been sufficiently 
described, in describing that of the blood. 

The authority of Charcot, a neuro-physiologist, 
whose statements few will be inclined to question, 
may be invoked in support of this view of the 
dominant importance of the cerebral circulation 
over other intra-cranial factors. He says : — 

" The encephalon is placed, if I may use the expres- 
sion, under a pathological regime, unlike that of other 
portions of the neural axis. In fact, the general state- 
ment may be made that in the encephalon, and espe- 
cially in the brain, the vascular system (arteries, veins, 
capillaries) controls the situation." 1 

1 Legons, etc., par J. M. Charcot, p. 46. 



166 VISIONS 

The action of drugs on the nerve-centres of the 
human system, and particularly on the visual ap- 
paratus of that system, forms one of the most in- 
teresting chapters of physiological materia medica. 
Moreover, there is no department of physiological 
or pathological research, in which the scientific 
progress of the last quarter of a century has been 
greater or more satisfactory than in this. Some- 
thing like accuracy, or at least something which 
promises to attain accuracy in the future, has 
been reached in our knowledge of the action of 
certain drugs upon the nervous system, and of 
the methods of administration by which to attain 
that action. Perhaps, also, there is nothing which 
illustrates more clearly and convincingly the me- 
chanical structure and working of the entire nerv- 
ous system, cerebral as well as spinal, than the 
facility and certainty with which it is possible, by 
means of these drugs, to play upon it. By their 
aid its power can be increased or diminished, all 
its functions modified, and indirectly the action of 
the whole organization affected. 

Digitalis in appropriate doses influences the gan- 
glionic nerve-centres of the heart and capillaries 
in such a way as to impart steadiness and force 
to the muscular fibres of the former, and improved 
elasticity to those of the latter ; thus causing the 
streams of the circulation to move with an equable 
and natural current, into and out of every organ. 
Calling this power to his aid, a skilful practi- 
tioner is able, in certain forms of congestion of the 



VISIONS. 167 

brain, to relieve that organ from the burden of 
excess of blood, and, sometimes, in the opposite 
condition of anemia, to send thither a needed sup- 
ply. By this regulation of the cerebral circula- 
tion, various functional disturbances of the brain, 
ideational as well as sensory, like delirium, pseud- 
opia, tinnitus aurium, and the like, are not in- 
frequently removed. When strange sights and 
sounds, accompanying congestion or anaemia of the 
brain, or of certain localities in the brain, dis- 
appear under the influence of an agent which re- 
lieves the pathological condition, the inference is 
a fair one, to say the least, that the ideational 
or sensory derangement is produced by that condi- 
tion. 

Quinine, if the dose is large enough, acts on 
the auditory nerve centres, producing tinnitus 
aurium, — subjective sounds of an irregular and 
indefinite character, it is true, but still sounds. 
The music of a church bell is not more unmis- 
takably heard by those in its neighborhood, than 
is the ringing of quinine by those who have taken 
a ringing dose of the drug. The subjective 
sound is the result of quinine, acting in some 
unknown way upon the circulation of the cerebral 
auditory centres. 

Frequent reference has been made in the course 
of this essay to the reflex action of the nervous 
system, as being one of its most important fea- 
tures, — perhaps the most important, as well as 
the most curious and ingenious feature of that 



168 visions. 

system. It has been shown that all parts of the 
nervous apparatus are endowed with a power, 
commonly called reflex, but which physiologists 
have also designated as excito-motory, affero-effe- 
rent, centripeto-centrifugal, and the like ; hoping 
thereby to describe with precision the responsive 
character of the ganglia, distributed throughout 
the organization, and presiding alike over its sim- 
ple and its complex functions. There are drugs, 
unlike in their physiological action those just 
mentioned, which exert a remarkable influence 
over reflex action, and which enable a physiolog- 
ical engineer to call it forth, or to repress it, al- 
most as readily and freely as the engineer of a 
locomotive, by the pressure of his thumb on a 
valve, can increase or diminish the force of steam 
in his engine. This action of drugs illustrates 
the mechanical nature of the nervous system, not 
less clearly than the pressure of an engineer's 
thumb does that of his engine. It is worthy of 
note, however, that the ego of the human system, 
whose volition enables the prescribed drug to be 
taken, is no more to be confounded with his en- 
gine, than the engineer, the pressure of whose 
thumb lets on the force of steam, is to be con- 
founded with his. 

By means of strychnia the reflex action of the 
nervous system, and especially of the spinal nerve 
centres, may be augmented indefinitely. They 
can be rendered so sensitive by it, that they will 
respond by convulsive muscular twitchings to the 



VISIONS. 169 

slightest contact of a single hair, to the touch of 
a feather, or to the wave of a breath of air ; and 
the convulsive action may be increased, by in- 
crease of dose, till rapid death follows. The 
ideational centres of the frontal lobes, and the 
cerebral sensory centres of- sight and hearing, are 
less amenable to the influence of strychnia than 
the spinal cord and lower nerve centres: an indi- 
cation or hint that the higher functions require 
for their performance less reflex or automatic 
power than the lower. How it is that strychnia 
accomplishes the result of increasing reflex sensi- 
bility is still an unsolved problem. Possibly, as 
some suppose, by a process of oxygenation in the 
nerve centres themselves ; or perhaps, as an in- 
genious experiment of Brown-Sequard implies, by 
the local irritation of direct contact with nerve 
tissue. 1 

The bromide of potassium, bromide of sodium, 
bromide of ammonium, bromide of lithium, and 
their congeners, exert upon reflex action an influ- 
ence, the opposite of that induced by strychnia. 
They repress it, and in sufficiently large doses 
nearly, if not quite abolish it. Their repressive 
action, however, is by no means limited to the 
spinal cord, but extends up to the sensory and 

1 Professor Brown- Sequard, as lie himself informed the author, 
succeeded in laying bare a section of a frog's nerve without de- 
stroying its central or peripheral connections, depriving it com- 
pletely of blood, and preventing the access of blood to it. He 
then applied strychnia to it with the result of producing twitch- 
ing in the muscles innervated by it. 



170 VISIONS. 

ideational centres. It is possible by an appro- 
priate administration of these agents to dull, with- 
out destroying, the general reflex sensibility of 
the nervous system, and to act on the cerebrum in 
such a way as to produce a degree of hebetude 
simulating imbecility. Ideation is not abolished, 
but rendered sluggish. The visual and auditory 
centres perceive sights and sounds, and report 
them to the frontal lobes, where they are received 
with indifference. Apperception is more dulled 
than perception. It is a curious and interesting 
fact that a bromized individual, in spite of the in- 
hibitory influence to which he is subjected, can, 
by a strong volitional effort, arouse his sleepy 
attention and blunted faculties, and compel them 
to work effectively, showing, that manifestation 
of power, not power itself, is interfered with by 
the bromides. Another phenomenon following 
the administration of bromidal preparations is 
sleep. This occurs so constantly, that they are 
now very generally employed for the relief of cer- 
tain forms of insomnia. Physiologists have shown 
that bromides, by means of the vaso-motor nerves, 
produce contraction of the capillaries, and espe- 
cially of those of the brain. The quantity and 
mode of administration, necessary to produce this 
effect, are the quantity and mode of administra- 
tion necessary to produce the phenomena abov% 
described ; indicating clearly that the mental heb- 
etude, sluggish movement, and somnolent con- 
dition, are the results of diminished circulation of 



VISIONS. 171 

blood through the capillaries of the nerve centres ; 
an additional proof of the dependence of cerebral 
phenomena upon 'the circulation through the cere- 
bral structures. 

The drugs, hitherto considered, illustrate the 
mechanical machinery of the nervous system as a 
whole. It is possible to pursue the illustration 
still further, and to show that by means of drugs 
one portion of the nervous system can be called 
into activity, and another portion, intimately as- 
sociated with the one affected and apparently a 
component part of it, be left quiescent. Many, 
perhaps all the centres of motion and sensation 
are constructed so that they seem to be a unit. 
The sensation of pain, for example, following a 
wound upon the finger, is carried along a sensory 
nerve to a nervous centre, where the sensation is 
translated, as we have previously seen, into mo- 
tion, and reflected along a motor nerve to a set of 
muscles, by which the finger is removed from the 
place of danger. Commonly when a sensori-motor 
centre is paralyzed, or destroyed by disease or 
other cause, both motion and sensation are taken 
away. An individual so affected can neither feel 
the injury, nor move the injured part ; he does 
not know that his finger is wounded, nor possess 
the power of escape. Sensation and motion, which 
the mind easily recognizes as distinct from each 
other, and which consciousness perceives and acts 
upon as separate and dissimilar factors, have their 
distinct organic representatives in the cell struc- 



172 visions. 

tures of the nerve centres ; and yet it is impossible 
to distinguish and isolate by chemical analysis, 
anatomical dissection, or microscopical exploration, 
a cell which recognizes sensation, from one which 
determines motion. This difference, which the 
mind perceives, but of which our gross means of 
investigation cannot discover the mechanism and 
into which no scalpel, laboratory, or lens has 
hitherto penetrated, drugs have made clear. The 
physostigma venenosum, a kidney-shaped bean 
from Calabar in Africa, which the natives of that 
region have long employed as an ordeal test for 
criminals, possesses the property of diminishing, 
and in sufficient doses of annihilating all reflex 
power, so that complete muscular flaccidity fol- 
lows its administration. At the same time sensi- 
bility persists, as long as it is possible to obtain 
any evidence of it. Motion is taken away, but 
sensation remains. The pain of heat and cold 
and injury is still reported to the ganglionic nerve 
centres, but their ability to remove the body from 
the offending spot, or to expel the offending cause, 
no longer exists. The drug acts on the nerve 
cells of motion, and leaves those of sensation 
unaffected. The central translation of sensation 
into motion is abolished — that link in the mech- 
anism is broken, — a demonstration, that the dif- 
ference between sensation and motion, which the 
mind accepts, is organically represented in the 
nervous apparatus. In the age of martyrdom, 
martyrs were fastened to the stake beyond escape, 



visions. 173 

and so compelled to suffer the utmost torture of 
the flames. What the church and the law in- 
flicted as a punishment for heresy and crime, by 
means of cords and chains which compelled muscu- 
lar inactivity, modern physiology has accomplished 
by a harmless looking alkaloid. How the old tor- 
turers would have rejoiced in the possession of an 
article, the administration of which would have 
enabled them to tie their victim to the fire by an 
invisible force, capable of preventing all escape 
and preserving all the agony ; and so to roast him 
alive, enforcing, with fiendish ingenuity, a night- 
mare of awful suffering and impossible escape ! 

In addition to the drugs just cited as agents, 
capable, by their physiological action, of illustrat- 
ing the division of the nervous system into various 
and distinct faculties, and which exhibit this di- 
vision, chiefly by their influence over its reflex 
mechanism and spinal centres, there are others 
which bring the same fact into clear light by their 
action on the higher sensory ganglia, and their 
influence over the cerebral functions of emotion, 
ideation, and volition. The principal medicinal 
agents of this class are opium, Indian hemp, 
alcohol, ether, chloroform, and belladonna with 
its congeners. These are among the most im- 
portant articles of the materia medica. They 
derive their therapeutic position, to a large ex- 
tent, from their power to select for their action 
certain important parts of the nervous system in 
preference to others, and to act efficiently upon 



174 visions. 

the selected portions. A brief allusion to their 
physiological behavior in this respect will be suffi- 
cient for the object before us. 

Opium is so generally known as an anodyne, 
soporific, and poison, that its power to stimulate 
the frontal half of the brain is often overlooked or 
depreciated ; and yet its action, in this respect, is 
not less important than its power over other por- 
tions of the nervous system. A great variety of 
symptoms, many of them apparently conflicting 
with each other, have been reported by different 
physiologists, as the result of its administration to 
men and animals. Without undertaking to rec- 
oncile these differences, an effort foreign to our 
present purpose, it may be safely asserted, as Dr. 
H. C. Wood, Jr., has shown, that after a careful 
survey of the symptoms, two classes of phenom- 
ena, one spinal, the other cerebral, stand out prom- 
inently, as the physiological result of opium. To 
this should be added the statement that in as- 
cending the scale of being from the lowest to the 
highest forms of animal life, the spinal phenomena 
predominate in the lowest, and the cerebral in 
the highest. The brain of man is more actively 
and peculiarly affected by opium, than that of the 
lower animals ; and of his brain, the higher and 
most complex ganglia are more susceptible to its 
action than the lower and less complex. This 
varying action of opium on different individuals, 
and on different parts of the brain in the same in- 
dividual, is of course less evident in lethal than 



visions. 175 

in non-lethal doses. De Quincey's description of 
the pains and pleasures of opium, which must be 
taken cum grano salis, for it has the flavor of an 
opium-eater's imagination, is correct, in so far as 
it paints the influence of the article on the emo- 
tions, the imagination, the intellect, and the will. 
His personal experience was a vivid illustration 
of the elective action of opium on the intra-cranial 
apparatus. 

A stimulus or irritant, applied to a nerve, will 
call into greater or less activity the special func- 
tion of the ganglionic nerve centre with which 
that nerve is connected, and of the force of which 
it is a conductor ; and it will not develop any 
other sensation or force, than that which is the 
special property of the part stimulated. Irrita- 
tion of a nerve of sensation causes pain, and ex- 
cept by a reflex act, does not cause motion. Irri- 
tation of a motor nerve will cause motion, not 
pain. Irritation of the auditory nerve gives rise 
to sound, and not to pain or motion. Gutting or 
pinching the optic nerve produces a flash of light, 
and not pain, movement, or sound. Irritation of 
the salivary nerves excites a flow of saliva, with- 
out exciting pain, motion, light, or sound. The 
same law pervades the whole nervous system. 
Each organic centre can be stimulated to do its 
own work, but not that of its neighbors or con- 
nections ; and each will act normally only under 
its own appropriate stimulus. The auditory gan- 
glia respond to waves of sound, not to those of 



176 visions. 

light ; the optic ganglia to waves of light, not to 
those of sound. The converse of this is equally 
true. When a stimulus succeeds in arousing an 
organ into activity, the action produced is that 
organ's function. If opium, by stimulating the 
frontal lobes, produces ideation, it is because idea- 
tion is the function of those lobes. Hence the 
value of the following graphic account, by De 
Quincey, of the movement of his brain under 
opium. It also illustrates the power which the 
brain possesses, and which has previously been 
dwelt upon, of reviving past impressions. 

" The minutest incidents of childhood," says the bril- 
liant essayist, " or forgotten scenes of later years, were 
often revived. I could not be said to recollect them ; 
for if I had been told of them when waking, I should 
not have been able to acknowledge them as parts of my 
past experience. But placed as they were before me, 
in dreams like intuitions, and clothed in all their evan- 
escent circumstances and accompanying feelings, I recog- 
nized them instantaneously. I was once told by a near 
relative of mine, that having in her childhood fallen into 
a river, and being on the very verge of death, but for 
the critical assistance which reached her, she saw in a 
moment her whole life, in its minutest incidents, arrayed 
before her simultaneously as in a mirror; and she had 
a faculty developed as suddenly for comprehending the 
whole and every part. This, from some opium experi- 
ences of mine, I can believe ; I have, indeed, seen the 
same thing asserted twice in modern books, and accom- 
panied by a remark which I am convinced is true, 
namely, that the dread book of account, which the Scrip- 



visions. 177 

tures speak of, is, in fact, the mind itself of each individ- 
ual. Of this, at least, I feel assured, that there is no 
such thing as forgetting possible to the mind; a thou- 
sand accidents may and will interpose a veil between 
our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions on 
the mind. Accidents of the same sort will also rend 
away this veil; but alike, whether veiled or unveiled, 
the inscription remains forever; just as the stars seem 
to withdraw before the common light of day, whereas ? 
in fact, we all know that it is the light which is drawn 
over them as a veil; and that they are waiting to be 
revealed, when the obscuring daylight shall have with- 
drawn." 1 

This, so far as a single case can be of value, is 
a psychological confirmation of the physiological 
inference from the experiments of Ferrier and 
others, that the frontal lobes of the brain contain 
a large portion, if not all, of the mechanism of 
ideation and volition. Stimulated by opium, De 
Quincey's brain not only reproduced cell-group- 
ings, which were organic foundations of ideal pic- 
tures — memories — of long past scenes, but also 
effected organic modifications, which enabled him 
to reason about them. He saw the past; satisfied 
himself that it was his past, and drew therefrom 
certain corollaries as to the working of his own 
brain. It does not appear that he saw, even in 
his opiated dreams, sensory pictures, but only 
ideational ones. The mechanical explanation of 

1 Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, by Thomas De Quin- 
cey, Am. ed., Svo, 1869, pp. 110, 111. 
12 



178 VISIONS. 

his psychological experience in this respect is this. 
In childhood, vivid sensory pictures were painted 
on the visual centres of his brain. These were 
telegraphed to the ideational visual centres of his 
frontal lobes, where correspondingly vivid idea- 
tional pictures were produced. In adult life, these 
lobes, excited by opium carried thither by the 
blood, reproduced the visual cell-groupings of his 
childhood, and the emotions and ideas correspond- 
ing to them. The angular gyri were less affected 
than the visual centres higher up. This is, in 
fact, what would be expected from the physiolog- 
ical action of opium, an agent which produces 
subjective, rather than objective visions. The 
testimony of an acute observer, like De Quincey, 
to the existence within his personal experience of 
intra-cranial pictorial representations, is peculiarly 
valuable, though he did not recognize the distinc- 
tion between cerebral sensory, and cerebral ideal 
pictures ; a distinction essential to a just compre- 
hension of the phenomena of pseudopia. 

Both Calabar bean and opium possess the power 
of causing iridal contraction ; and this they do in 
virtue of their influence over the visual apparatus, 
independently of their action on the cerebral tis- 
sues in general. This power is another instance 
of the elective affinity of these agents for certain 
ganglionic nerve centres in preference to others, 
and lends additional confirmation to the doctrine, 
that the process of vision is not confided to the 
eye alone, but to a complex apparatus extending 



VISIONS. 179 

well into the brain. It is a curious and sugges- 
tive circumstance, to say the least, that an article, 
like opium, capable of exciting the cerebral hemi- 
spheres to the production of ideational pictures, 
should also be able to excite to contraction that 
part of the visual mechanism, which serves as the 
original gateway for the entrance into the brain of 
photographic pictures of the outer world- Doubt- 
less, by and by, something more than coincidence 
or simultaneousness of action will be discerned 
between these two phenomena. 

Cannabis Indica, called haschisch in its native 
country, Indian hemp in Europe and America, is 
a worthy member of the materia medica, though 
its therapeutic virtues are much less valuable 
than those of opium. It possesses great interest, 
however, for the psychological physiologist, on 
account of its peculiar and extraordinary power 
over the brain ; exerting upon some of the gan- 
gli'a a singular influence, and affecting them all 
more or less. It does not lead, the brain to revive 
past experiences, so much as to pervert and distort 
existing ones. Its vulgar East Indian appellation 
of hashisch, from which some derive the English 
term assassin, is said to be indicative of its influ- 
ence over the brain of those who chew it, and 
who often commit, under its delirium -producing 
action, all sorts of excesses, even the assassination 
s>i those they meet. It is a moderate anodyne 
and soporific, incapable of inducing either the 
profound anaesthesia or sleep characteristic of the 



180 VISIONS. 

cerebral action of opium ; on the other hand, it 
exerts over parts of the brain a more marked in- 
fluence than that drug. Its physiological action is, 
therefore, a forcible illustration of the functional 
independence of those nerve centres upon which 
its energy is expended. Every instance of this 
sort renders more probable, if it does not demon- 
strate, the existence of distinct organic centres in 
the anterior lobes for the perception, analysis, and 
reproduction of impressions like ideational pic- 
tures. 

Ideas of time and space have always afforded 
to metaphysicians a large opportunity for a great 
deal of subtle discussion and useless speculation. 
Without taking part in their metaphysical gym- 
nastics, it may be justly observed that it is impor- 
tant, both for physiologists and psychologists, to 
recognize the probable existence in the brain of an 
organ concerned with the manifestation of notions 
of time and space, and perhaps exclusively devoted 
to the apperception of such ideas. Independent- 
ly, however, of all abstract and a priori consid- 
erations, the physiological fact appears — let the 
metaphysician interpret it as he can, — that can- 
nabis Indica, taken in sufficient quantity, possesses 
the power of imparting to conceptions of time and 
space a singular degree of magnitude or extension. 
In accordance with the physiological law, that a 
ganglionic nerve centre can only be made to ex- 
hibit a power of which the manifestation is con- 
tided to its organization, it is fair to infer, that if 



VISIONS. 181 

an artificial stimulus can be applied so as to de- 
velop or exaggerate ideas of time and space, there 
must be an organic provision in the brain for that 
purpose. It is an established plrysiological phe- 
nomenon that cannabis Indica is capable of ex- 
citing and strangely developing these ideas. De 
Quincey fancied that he discovered the same vir- 
tues in opium from the character of his dreams 
after taking laudanum. His statements in this re- 
spect have not been confirmed by other observers, 
and are undoubtedly fanciful ; but even if they are 
not true of the dreams of opium, they are a graphic 
description of the time-and-space-magnifying prop- 
erties of Indian hemp ; -a description, the accuracy 
of which I have repeatedly been able to verify by 
the experience of those who have taken the drug 
under my professional care. " The sense of space," 
says the brilliant Opium -lover, "and in the end 
the sense of time, were both powerfully affected. 
Buildings, landscapes, etc., were exhibited in pro- 
portions so vast as the bodily eye is not fitted 
to receive. Space swelled, and was amplified to 
an extent of unutterable infinity. This, however, 
did not disturb me so much as the vast expan- 
sion of time. I sometimes seemed to have lived 
for seventy or one hundred years in one night ; 
nay, sometimes had feelings representative of a 
millennium, passed in that time, or, however, of a 
duration far beyond the limits of any human ex- 
perience." * One of my medical friends noticed 

1 Confessions, etc., p. 110. 



182 VISIONS. 

a similar effect in his own person after taking 
cannabis Indica. Ascending a flight of stairs, 
from his sitting-room to his bedchamber, seemed 
to occupy time enough for a journey from Boston 
to Washington and back. It required a century 
for the winding up of his watch. 

The following case happily illustrates the power 
of cannabis Indica to play with the human brain, 
and to act on the visual apparatus, as well as on 
the higher ideo-motor centres. 

Three members of the medical class of Harvard 
University, after one of my lectures on the phys- 
iological action of cannabis Indica, determined to 
test the accuracy of the statements to which they 
had listened, by experiments with the article upon 
themselves. They accordingly procured some of 
it, and each took a portion. After taking it they 
remained together about an hour. At the end of 
this period, the whole party began to feel " queer," 
and thought their wisest course was to go, each to 
his own home. Before separating they agreed to 
meet each other the next day and report and 
compare experiences. Two of the number found 
it necessary to exercise a moderate degree of self 
control, in order to get home without exciting ob- 
servation. On reaching home they were garru- 
lous and uneasy, had a quick pulse and were 
sleepy ; so sleepy, that they went immediately to 
bed and to sleep. Their sleep was sound. On 
the next morning they awoke in their usual con- 
dition. Such was their experience. 



visions. 183 

The third experimenter did not get off so easily 
as his companions. Older than most medical 
students and more fortunate, he was a married 
man, and possessed a house of his own. It was 
two miles or more from the place of parting with 
his companions to his home, and he shortened the 
way by getting into a car or omnibus. Soon 
after taking his seat he was strongly impressed 
with a sense of his own importance, with the 
size, symmetry, and beauty of his person, and 
with the comparative insignificance of those about 
him. This impression became so strong that he 
felt compelled to speak of it. Accordingly, call- 
ing the conductor to his side, he expatiated upon 
his personal attractions, and especially dwelt upon 
the size and shape of his arms and thighs, and 
did not fail to comment upon the excellence of 
his general make-up. He likewise remarked upon 
the lilliputian aspect of his fellow passengers. 
He, himself, was not an Apollo. The conduc- 
tor attempted no reply to these criticisms. Pres- 
ently the student, who may be called Mr. K., 
again addressed the conductor, and rehearsing 
the matter in a loud tone, advised him to put 
the passengers out of the carriage, as persons 
unfit to ride there; and as especially unfit to be 
in the neighborhood of so august a personage as 
Mr. K. By this time he was near his residence. 
The car stopped. The conductor, charitably sup- 
posing liquor had provoked such odd behavior, 
kindly offered to assist Mr. K. to the sidewalk. 



184 visions. 

All offers of aid were refused with imperial dig- 
nity and decision. He soon reached home. The 
ideas of grandeur and importance with which his 
own person had inspired him, attached themselves 
to his house; he stopped before entering, to ad- 
mire the magnificence of its portal and its palatial 
facjade. He entered. The hall was imposing ; 
the stairway grand. His library equalled the 
Bodleian. His wife was a princess ; and so on 
through all his belongings. Suddenly the scene 
changed. He acquired double consciousness, and 
became two persons, — two distinct individuali- 
ties. One was a notable physician, the other an 
indigent patient. He proceeded, in the character 
of a physician, to examine himself in the charac- 
ter of a patient. Consciousness No. 1 discovered 
a serious affection in the body of consciousness 
No. 2. No. 1 went into his office and obtained 
some surgical instruments, with which he under- 
took to operate on No. 2 ; having stretched the 
latter for the purpose on a sofa. These singular 
doings alarmed Mrs. K., who, fearing for her hus- 
band's sanity, sent for a physician. In the mean 
time, consciousness No. 1 had dismissed con- 
sciousness No. 2, and recognized instead a crim- 
inal, who on account of some misdemeanor in pri- 
son had been condemned to the punishment of a 
shower bath. Obedient to this notion, conscious- 
ness No. 1 administered a shower bath to con- 
sciousness No. 2. The physician who had been 
summoned by Mrs. K. arrived in the midst of the 



visions. 185 

bath. The result of his investigation was the con- 
clusion, not an unnatural one under the circum- 
stances, that Mr. K. was drunk. By this time 
the soporific influence of the drug began to assert 
itself, so that only a little urgency was necessary 
in order to induce Mr. K. to go to bed. A sleep 
of about twelve hours put an end to further ex- 
travagances. 

On the next day Mr. K. retained a vivid recol- 
lection of the various phases through which he 
had passed. He remembered distinctly the con- 
viction he entertained, while under the power of 
cannabis Indica, of the reality of each scene he 
witnessed, and of the part he played in it. The 
fact of double consciousness stood out in his mem- 
ory with peculiar prominence. He did not experi- 
ence the amplification of time and space like De 
Quincey, but the idea of size which he attached 
to his person and belongings, and the presumed 
length of time which he spent in his various 
operations, require a similar amplification of those 
conceptions. The pictures of grandeur and beauty 
which his own person, that of his wife, and his 
house exhibited, in all the reality of actual pres- 
entation, indicated unequivocal derangement of 
his visual apparatus. It is evident that no new 
ideas or pictures were produced by the action 
of his brain in its novel condition. Old ones 
in part or in whole were reproduced, amplified, 
jumbled together, or otherwise perverted. In 
physiological terms, the cell-groupings and cell- 



186 vision. 

modifications, which had previously been formed, 
were partially reproduced in greater or less dis- 
order, with a corresponding disorder of ideas. 
Like the explosion of a shell in the midst of a 
battalion, which throws the troops into strange 
combinations of confusion and rout, or the violent 
unrhythmical striking of the keys of a piano, 
yielding sound without music, the passage of can- 
nabis Indica through the cells of Mr. K.'s brain 
produced singularly disordered cell combinations, 
and ideas without reason. 

Alcohol has probably caused more visions, such 
as they are, than all other drugs combined. It 
also has been, and still is, a prolific source of dis- 
cussion and bone of contention. Even its physio- 
logical action, a purely scientific matter, has be- 
come a question of popular debate ; and those 
who are ignorant alike of the rudiments of physi- 
ological chemistry and of experimental research, 
discuss the relation of alcohol to the system, and 
criticize the results of modern investigation with 
regard to it, as if they were profound experts. 
Fortunately it is not necessary for the purpose of 
this essay, to discuss any of the questions, scientific 
or moral, which teetotallers, their opponents, or 
reformers of any sort, have raised with regard to 
alcohol. The visions of alcohol are matters, about 
the existence of which there is no doubt. 

Alcohol is the active principle of all sorts of 
ardent spirits, wines, ales, beers, and the like. 
They differ from each other in various ingredi- 



VISIONS. 187 

ents, as acids, etherial oils, flavoring and coloring 
substances, which render them more or less agree- 
able to the palate, the stomach, and the constitu- 
tion of different individuals, and which give to 
them a varying therapeutic value ; but after all, 
that to which they owe their chief importance is 
alcohol. Without that constituent, they would 
do very little good or harm in the world. Alcohol 
is the devil or angel, always lurking at the bottom 
of the cup. It hides in the rich man's bottle, and 
in the poor man's dram. Any of these liquors, 
taken in sufficient quantity, and for a sufficient 
length of time, will disturb the nervous system, 
peculiarly affect the visual apparatus, and lead to 
dreams and visions. 

As might be expected, the pseudopia of alcohol 
has a character of its own. The visions of opium, 
however distinct and fascinating, are subjective, 
soothing to the general nervous system, and stim- 
ulating to the imagination. The opium-eater loves 
to retire into a corner, away from a crowd, wrap 
himself up in revery, and gaze on his pictures in 
silence. The visions of cannabis Indica are ob- 
jective, magnificent, and commanding. He who 
takes it projects the disordered figments of his 
own brain into space, makes them imperial, and 
becomes the autocrat of his imperial world. The 
visions of alcohol are objective, confused, and tur- 
bulent. Less imaginative than those of opium, 
less royal than those of Indian hemp, they endow 
ordinary scenes and objects with life, and with 



188 visions. 

life which is often ridiculous, sometimes tragic, 
and always vulgar. Lying on his bed, the victim 
of delirium tremens converts the rude pictures of 
his papered walls into a living and active pano- 
rama, transforming its irregular lines into crawl- 
ing snakes and creeping things, its shadows into 
hobgoblins, and all about him into strange shapes. 
in the movement of his bedclothes, he sees the 
plunging of unnatural animals ; giants in busts 
and plaster casts ; and the face of a devil in the 
countenance of his wife ; he hears the cries of the 
damned in the voices of his children ; and sur- 
rounds himself with scenes of unutterable horror, 
the distortions or caricatures of his surroundings. 
Commonly the emotion of fear is excited by the 
shapes and horrors which alcohol evokes, or at 
least simultaneously with theme The drunkard 
is timid. He tries to conceal himself in his bed- 
clothes from his tormentors, or to run from them, 
or in despair and self-defence to kill them. Often 
bombastic and vain, he rarely manifests true cour- 
age. 

Irregular muscular action is characteristic of 
alcoholic intoxication. The tottering gait of the 
drunkard is unfortunately too well known ; but it 
is not so well known that occasionally incoordina- 
tion of muscular action affects the ocular muscles, 
generally the internal rectus, thereby producing 
double vision. This is another instance of an 
agent, which, to the power of inducing cerebral 
pseudopia, joins that of affecting the ocular appa- 



visions. 189 

ratus. Opium and cannabis Indica, as already- 
stated, contract the iris ; belladonna, as will be 
mentioned presently, dilates it ; alcohol disturbs 
the action of the eye-ball. Perhaps it might be 
expected that agents, which act decidedly on one 
part of the visual machinery, would affect other 
parts also. A drug, which has the power of de- 
ranging the irides, might extend its influence a 
little farther up, and take hold of the cells of the 
visual ganglia, giving rise, to motion in the iris, 
and visions above. 

Alcohol does not produce pseudopia so readily as 
opium, cannabis Indica, belladonna, and the like. 
A single dose, or a few doses of these agents is 
often sufficient to excite the visual apparatus to 
activity. One dose of alcohol may intoxicate the 
person who ventures to take it, and lead to a 
great deal of nervous disorder, but will rarely if 
ever call up visions. They occur only after it has 
been taken long enough to bring about an organic 
change in cerebral nerve tissue ; and then they 
appear as one of the results of that change, rather 
than as a direct effect of alcohol. The organic 
changes which alcoholic liquids induce in the vis- 
ual ganglia, deprive those centres of their normal 
accuracy of perception. Probably the angular 
gyri and ideational centres are more profoundly 
affected than the tubercula quadrigemina and ocu- 
lar apparatus. In like manner the same agent 
gradually deprives the motor ganglia of locomo- 
tive perception and action, and hence general mus- 



IPO VISIONS. 

cular tremor and incoordinated gait. There is an 
analogy between a drunkard's visions and his step. 
Occasionally, however, his visions instead of being 
absurd and confused embrace distinct and intelli- 
gible objects. Thus in the first of the previous 
series of cases, the black dog which appeared to 
the patient was neither a caricature nor a monster, 
but bore a normal canine shape and expression. 
The cerebral cell-groups, which were the hiero- 
glyphic of that dog, were reproduced by the alco- 
holized brain, excited by some unknown stimulus. 
The visions caused by ether and chloroform 
resemble those of hysteria and ordinary febrile 
delirium, rather than those which follow opium 
or cannabis Indica. In some respects they are 
like those of an alcoholized brain. During pro- 
found anaesthesia, ideational as well as sensory 
action is abolished. When the system is put un- 
der the influence of the inhalation of ether, there 
are first a sense of exhilaration and fulness in the 
head, combined generally with tinnitus aurium. 
" These are soon succeeded by a feeling of the 
immediate surroundings being afar off, and this 
soon fades into semi-unconsciousness with visions 
and illusions. These are of various characters, 
and are often accompanied by a species of delir- 
ium. Some patients weep, others laugh ; some 
shout, some pray, some rave, and some become 
exceedingly pugnacious." 1 Etherization admira- 

1 Therapeutics, Materia Medica, etc., by G. C. Wood, Jr., 
p. 242. 



VISIONS. 191 

bly brings out the anatomical arrangement of the 
nervous system in distinct centres, and their cor- 
responding separate functional action. According 
to Flourens, " the order of the involvement of the 
nerve-centres (by inhalation of ether) in man and 
animals, is first, the cerebrum, next the sensory 
centres of the cord, next the motor centres of 
the cord, next the sensory centres of the medulla 
oblongata, and finally, the motor centres of the 
medulla oblongata." 3 If the anatomist had not 
discovered the distinct centres or stations of the 
cerebro-spinal system, the physiologist would be 
warranted in asserting their existence from the 
phenomena of etherization. Ether puts to sleep 
one function of the nervous system after another. 
Step by step, it ascends from the lowest to the 
highest — from the simplest to the most complex 
— parts of the mechanism of life, destroying the 
power of each part as it mounts, till all vital 
manifestation is annihilated. The functions cease 
separately and in a certain regular order. The 
inference is inevitable that each function disap- 
pears, because the organ to which the function is 
attached is controlled by ether, and prevented 
from functionating. So, by parity of reasoning, if 
an ideational function of vision can be called into 
activity or abolished by artificial means, like opium 
or alcohol, which act on the frontal lobes, the ex- 
istence of an organic centre in those lobes, above 
the angular gyri, may be fairly inferred. Bella- 

1 Therapeutics, Materia Medica, etc., by G. C. Wood, Jr., p. 243. 



192 VISIONS. 

donna, hyoscyamus, and stramonium add their 
testimony to that of the drugs already quoted. 
All of these, in sufficient doses, give rise to a pe- 
culiar, whimsical and muttering sort of delirium, 
accompanied with visual disturbance, showing their 
power to call into action the ideo-motor and vis- 
ual centres. All of them also possess the power, 
whether administered locally or internally, of di- 
lating the pupil, and are used by oculists for that 
purpose : an additional illustration of the fact, 
that medicinal agents which affect one part of the 
mechanism of vision affect other parts of it also. 

The doctrine of these pages, that the process of 
vision is confided to a mechanism consisting of 
distinct parts, each part being under the control 
of a centre or ganglion, the whole united, however, 
so as to form a unit, is confirmed, as our state- 
ments have indicated, by the teachings of physiol- 
ogy, and the results of experimental investigation. 
It has also been shown that this process, ordinarily 
and normally called into action by external objects, 
as living beings and natural scenes, may also be 
called into action, subjectively, by such factors as 
emotion, association, habit, expectant attention, 
automatism, blood supply, drugs, and influences 
which accompany these forces. It remains to ex- 
amine the relation of disease and volition to the 
process under consideration. 

Unfortunately our knowledge of the pathology 
of the nervous system, and especially of the brain, 
is yet in its infancy. Nor is this all. Recent in 



visions. 193 

vestigations, both clinical and experimental, show 
that much which was supposed to be knowledge 
in this direction is largely mixed with error ; and 
that consequently the whole territory of nervous 
pathology must be restudied, — a labor which some 
of the ablest medical scientists of the present 
day have undertaken. Such being the case, it is 
scarcely to be expected that so minute a portion 
of this territory as that appropriated to the 
mechanism of vision should have received much 
attention as yet. Something, however, has been 
accomplished in the way of unravelling the mys- 
teries of nervous affections, and what has been 
done throws considerable light upon the subject 
of our present inquiry. The phenomena of dis- 
ease sometimes point the way to an explanation 
of the phenomena of health. 

The eye itself is frequently attacked by disease. 
Its pathology as well as its physiology has been 
carefully explored, and it may be safely asserted 
that, at the present time, ophthalmology ap- 
proaches nearer to an exact science than any 
other branch of medicine. But the eye is only 
one part of the machinery of vision ; and being 
the most external part, is more easily studied, and 
its diseases are more readily recognized than is 
the case with the deeper seated portions of the 
same machinery. The intra-cranial sections of 
the visual apparatus, hid in the recesses of the 
brain, are not readily accessible to investigation, 
and have been studied chiefly as a part of the 
13 



194 visions. 

general cerebral mass. A knowledge of them 
and their diseases is not less necessary to a com- 
prehension of all the phenomena of orthopia and 
pseudopia than an acquaintance with those of the 
eye itself. But the diseases of this obscure region 
are not better known, to say the least, than affec- 
tions of the brain, of which it forms a part. 

Another and serious difficulty in the way of ob- 
taining from the study of cerebral diseases the 
light which they might be naturally expected to 
throw upon the process and phenomena of vision, 
is to be found in the fact that they are rarely 
limited to the visual territory, but commonly ex- 
tend beyond it. A clot of blood, effused into the 
angular gyri, is not often confined there, but in- 
volves, by its size or by the morbid action it sets 
up, the auditory centre and more or less of the 
neighboring motor centres. A lesion affecting 
the tubercula quadrigemina is rarely limited to 
the tubercles, but takes hold of the surrounding 
region also. In such cases it is always difficult, 
often impossible, to discriminate between symp- 
toms produced by a lesion of a visual centre alone, 
and those produced by derangement of a consider- 
able tract, of which the centre forms a part. In 
spite of these difficulties, a careful study of cases 
of cerebral disease, involving a part or the whole 
of the machinery of vision, and a comparison of 
them with the results of direct experiment, have 
already led to many new and valuable conclusions. 
When, as now and then happens, a lesion is lim- 



VISIONS. 195 

ited to one or more parts of the visual apparatus, 
the investigation of it, correspondingly simplified, 
yields results of the highest importance to phys- 
iology and pathology. These pages have been 
enriched by two or three such cases, reported by 
Charcot. Clinical observation yields, moreover, a 
large number of cases of non-fatal diseases of the 
brain, which illustrate and to some extent explain 
the subject of visions. Fevers of all sorts, many 
cerebral affections, accidents involving the brain, 
intemperance, insanities, and other derangements 
give rise to a plentiful crop of visions, many of 
which admit of being observed with tolerable ease, 
and amply repay the physician for the necessary 
time and trouble of observation. It is, in fact, 
upon a series of such cases that the present paper 
is founded, and from which it derives its prin- 
cipal value. Cases of visions are not unusual. 
They enter into the experience of most practi- 
tioners. It is not difficult, therefore, for the 
clinical observer to obtain facts, illustrating the 
abnormal action of the visual apparatus ; the diffi- 
culty lies in the correct interpretation of the facts 
observed. 

Anatomy describes the raw material and organ- 
ization of the brain. Physiology describes the 
cerebral functions and their modes of action. Clin- 
ical observation tests the accuracy of anatomical 
and physiological teaching, and supplements them 
both by pathological research. The brain must 
be approached by all these avenues, and must be 



196 VISIONS. 

studied in action during life, as well as by the 
microscope and scalpel after death, in order to 
comprehend its power. The most careful exam- 
ination and exact knowledge of the structure and 
parts of a steam engine would fail to reveal its 
force or final cause. A study of it in action would 
disclose its normal but not its abnormal capacities. 
An acquaintance with the whole varied experi- 
ence of an engine's life ; with its efforts and frac- 
tures ; its handling by different engineers, good 
and bad, drunk and sober ; its exposures, illnesses 
and recoveries, would reveal in it capacities, ec- 
centricities, and idiosyncracies which, without such 
observation, would never be brought to light. So 
with the visual apparatus. The anatomist can 
take it to pieces, and show its parts like those of 
a telescope ; the physiologist can exhibit its power 
and working and field of vision ; but from the 
clinical observer must be obtained not only the 
authentication of every physiological law concern- 
ing it, but whatever knowledge it is possible to 
obtain with regard to its abnormal action, and 
the modifications impressed upon its functions by 
the varied experience of the cerebral life of which 
it forms a part. 

Notwithstanding all the difficulties attending it, 
and they are many and great, medical science owes 
a large portion of its present knowledge of cere- 
bral affections to clinical observation. Among 
its contributions are to be found some of especial 
salue to the student of visions. 



visions. 197 

The first of these in importance is the confirma- 
tion, perhaps it would be more just to say, the 
demonstration of the fact, that visions may and 
do occur; that subjective seeing being more than 
fancy, and more than a mere possibility, is an oc- 
casional reality. Clinical observation asserts the 
existence of the phenomena of pseudopia, as a 
symptom of cerebral disease, with as much cer- 
tainty as it does that of paralysis or pain, as symp- 
tomatic of nervous derangement. The full signifi- 
cance of the existence of such phenomena has not 
been hitherto duly appreciated. Visions have 
been and are commonly regarded, even by medi- 
cal men, as figments of the imagination — airy 
nothings — rather than as manifestations of ab- 
normal brain action. From the age of Hippoc- 
rates till now, clinicians have recognized the oc- 
currence of various sorts of pseudopia, in connec- 
tion with a variety of maladies, and, content with 
regarding them as a part of delirium or kind of 
hallucination, have neglected to inquire further. 
This neglect only enhances the value of their tes- 
timony to the fact, that the visual apparatus is 
capable of being thrown into action by intra- 
cranial causes. It was stated in the earlier part 
of this essay that we do not see with our eyes, or 
hear with our ears. Clinical observation, in con- 
firmation of this physiological statement, asserts 
that it has met at the bedside those whose brains, 
under the influence of disease, saw, though their 
eyes were blind ; and conversely, has met with 



198 visions. 

those, who, with eyes capable of vision, had brains 
which were not. 

This physiological fact, the demonstration of 
which is largely due to clinical observation, is 
emphasized in this connection, on account of its 
great importance. By subjective sight is, of 
course, meant the seeing of objects and scenes, by 
the reproduction of cell groups, without the stim- 
ulus of any external object. This fact, which has 
long been known as one of the results of cerebral 
disease, and which has stood prominently out be- 
fore the eyes of clinical observers, has received 
very little attention, in comparison with that be- 
stowed on the visions of charlatan spiritualists, 
prophets, enthusiasts, and others, who have ex- 
cited the wonder and awe of the world. The 
brain of a drunkard, who sees a black dog in an 
image on his mantel, or a burglar in the form of 
his wife, may be in a condition, so far as its visual 
cell groups are concerned, not unlike that of some 
rapt votary, who sees the countenance of his pa- 
tron saint, beaming from his crucifix ; or from 
that of an excited soldier, who, on the eve of a 
battle is blessed by the appearance of his mother's 
face in the midst of his prayers and tears. The 
fact being accepted, which clinical observation 
has chiefly substantiated, that morbid states of 
the intracranial apparatus may lead to the estab- 
lishment of visions, the foundation is laid for the 
rational explanation of many phenomena, hitherto 
regarded as inexplicable. It is singular that this 



VISIONS, 199 

important fact, which disease has for a long period 
clearly revealed, should have received so little at- 
tention. Physicians are so familiar with visions 
as symptoms in febrile and nervous derangements 
that they have overlooked the physiological im- 
portance of such symptoms in other and psycho- 
logical relations. One of the most important con- 
tributions, then, towards an accurate knowledge 
of visions has come from a study of disease ; name- 
ly, the demonstration of the fact of their subjec- 
tive existence. 

It should be noticed, in the second place, that 
a knowledge of the conditions necessary to the 
production of visions can be obtained only or 
chiefly by a study of diseases in which they oc- 
cur. This point was discussed when speaking of 
blood supply, including nutrition, and other agen- 
cies, which influence the grouping of nerve cells 
and modify nerve tissue. It is therefore unneces- 
sary to dwell upon it again now. Habit, associ- 
ation, attention, and other modes of cerebral activ- 
ity are intensified in their action by many dis- 
eases, and produce visual effects, which without 
the underlying morbid state, could not be brought 
about. Hyperemia or anaemia of a visual centre 
may set the visual telegraph in operation, and 
notify a higher centre subjectively of the pres- 
ence of a dog, or child, or angel, or devil, just 
as the same condition, in a motor centre, may 
set the motor apparatus at work, and produce 
convulsions ; or in a centre of sensation, may 



200 VISIONS. 

produce neuralgia. It is not intended by this 
statement to affirm that all visions rest upon dis- 
ease as their basis ; but it is intended to affirm 
that visions do not occur, unless some abnormal 
state of the visual nerve mechanism is produced, 
through which they are manifested, and which 
condition their manifestation. Disease contrib- 
utes the conditions necessary to the production of 
subjective visions, and so leads the way to an in- 
vestigation of their pathology. It does not mili- 
tate against this view of the etiology of pseudopia, 
that cerebral morbid states, producing visions, may 
be artificially induced. Changes in the quantity 
and quality of the blood, circulating through the 
visual nerve centres, are doubtless the most fre- 
quent causes of inducing those cell-groups and cell 
modifications which are the hieroglyphics of vis- 
ions. Such changes undoubtedly occur in fevers, 
starvation, delirium tremens, and other affections, 
among the symptoms of which are subjective sights 
and sounds. 

The third point to be mentioned has, like the 
previous one, been already touched upon. It is 
this : Physiology obtains from the clinical obser- 
vation of disease the final and complete demon- 
stration, that the visual function is localized in 
a special intracranial apparatus. Experiments, 
like those of Hitzig and Ferrier, may render the 
localization more than probable ; but such ex- 
periments were performed on animals, and the 
results cannot be transferred absolutely from ani- 



VISIONS. 201 

mals to man. Neither is it justifiable, if it were 
desirable, to experiment on men as on animals, in 
order to decide the question. Disease, however, 
performs what experiment would not dare to 
undertake. By its mysterious processes it attacks 
different parts of the brain, producing all sorts 
of cerebral lesions and cerebral blood changes. 
Sometimes these lesions or changes are limited 
to one or more visual centres, thus enabling the 
clinical observer to test the accuracy of the phys- 
iologist's statements with regard to the function 
of those parts. 

It thus appears that disease reveals the fact of 
the existence of subjective vision ; secondly, that 
it occasionally facilitates the appearance of vis- 
ions, and by many of its processes affords an op- 
portunity for a study of the character and condi- 
tions of cerebral seeing; and, thirdly, that it 
confirms the recent assertion of physiology, as to 
the localization of the visual function in a special 
part of the brain, and in a peculiar apparatus. 

The last influence or factor, which it is neces- 
sary to mention in this connection, as capable of 
facilitating the appearance of visions, and in rare 
instances of initiating them, is Volition. 

If there were a locomotive running over our 
railroads, stopping at one station to take passen- 
gers in, and at another to let them out, slowing 
its speed around a curve and over a bridge, and 
hurrying its pace on a straight and level road, 
cautiously feeling its way through a tunnel or into 



202 visions. 

a city, putting forth all its power to surmount an 
ascending grade, and with equal effort holding 
back on a descending one, advertising with a shrill 
cry the careless and halt and blind to avoid its 
path, starting at a fixed moment and reaching its 
various goals with exactness, and doing this and 
all its labor intelligently, with the engineer invisi- 
ble ; if such a locomotive could be found, there 
would at once spring up around it two classes of 
philosophers ; of whom, one class would attribute 
to the engine itself, including its mechanism, and 
aided perhaps by the reaction of its surroundings 
on its wheels and springs, the power of self guid- 
ance ; while the other class maintaining an oppo- 
site view, would assert the existence and constant 
presence of an invisible engineer. The human 
brain, an engine more delicate, wonderful, and 
powerful than any of which man has conceived, 
started on life's devious way some thousands of 
years ago, has been running over it since and is 
running still. Its engineer is invisible, and be- 
cause invisible, many have doubted if there is one. 
This essay is based on the hypothesis, the author 
believes on the fact, that a cerebral engineer ex- 
ists, who, within certain definite physiological 
limits, guides and controls his engine ; an engi- 
neer who is a self acting cause. Whatever name 
may be given to him, Soul, Ego, the Me, or other 
title, he is known only by his volitions, impressed 
on his engine. Hence the importance, in this dis- 
cussion, of ascertaining as definitely as possible 



visions. 203 

lae relation of volition to the visual function. 
However much the engine may act automatically, 
or be trained to act so, the cerebral engineer, by 
teaching some secret nerve centre or cell, as 
the engineer of a locomotive touches a protected 
spring, modifies, more or less, the movements of 
tiie mechanism intrusted to his care. It is not 
probable that there is a nerve centre, cell, or fibre, 
lemoved from his supervision or beyond his reach. 
Even the centres of special sense, those of sight, 
hearing, taste, and smell, which are charged with 
the duty of reporting the outer world to him, are 
influenced by his commands, and sometimes con- 
trolled by his volition. 

It is not intended, by these statements, to assert 
that physiology has discovered the point of con- 
tact between Mind and Brain, or that the exist- 
ence of an Ego — an engineer — has been demon- 
strated, in the sense that three angles of a simple 
triangle have been demonstrated to be equal to 
two right angles ; but it is intended to assert that 
these statements, if a cerebral engineer exists, are 
logically true. 

This brings us to the question, how far does 
volition influence vision ; — how far does the will 
control sight. It is admitted by all physiologists 
that the will controls, or at least modifies all the 
functions. Even the processes of disease are af- 
fected, and sometimes initiated by the will. The 
proverb that "the mind can kil 1 and the mind can 
cure " not only illustrates a popular belief, but a 



204 visions. 

physiological truth. When the will directs the 
power of attention to any object, it has already 
been shown that all the senses are sharpened in 
their attempt to carry out the directions of the 
will. Objects are seen and impressions recog- 
nized, which would not otherwise be noticed. In 
like manner, whatever is performed under the 
cognizance of the will, and especially* whatever is 
performed in obedience to an express act of voli- 
tion, is done with enhanced energy. 

If physiology has not succeeded in exposing the 
process by which the will communicates with the 
body and secures obedience, it has succeeded in 
establishing the fact, that the results of the will 
are attained by indirect, and not by direct action. 
The will does not move the hand or the eye by 
directly communicating a force or stimulus to 
them, but by playing upon the ganglia, which 
automatically call into action the necessary nervo- 
muscular combinations. "No better illustration 
of this doctrine could be adduced, than that which 
is furnished by the act of Vocalization ; either in 
articulate Speech, or in the production of musical 
tones. In each of these acts, the coordination of 
a large number of muscular movements is re- 
quired ; and so complex are their combinations, 
that the professed anatomist would be unable, 
without careful study, to determine what is the 
precise state of each of the muscles concerned in 
the production of a given musical note, or the 
enunciation of a particular syllable. Yet we 



VISIONS. 205 

simply conceive the tone or the syllable we wish 
to utter, and say to our automatic self ' Do this : ' 
and the well-trained automaton does it. The 
delicate gradations in the action of each individual 
muscle, and the harmonious combination of the 
whole, are effected under the guidance of the Ear, 
without (save in exceptional cases) the smallest 
knowledge on our own part of the nature of the 
mechanism we are putting in action. In fact, the 
most perfect acquaintance with that mechanism 
would scarcely afford the least assistance in the 
acquirement of the power to use it. The ' train- 
ing ' which develops the inarticulate Cry of the 
infant into articulate Speech or melodious Song, 
mainly consists in the fixation of the Attention on 
the audible result, the selection of that one of the 
imitative efforts to produce it which is most nearly 
successful, and the repetition of this until it has 
become habitual or secondarily automatic. The 
Will can thenceforwards reproduce any sound once 
acquired, by calling upon the Automatic appara- 
tus for the particular combination of movements 
which it has grown into the power of executing 
in respondence to each preconception ; provided, 
at least, that the apparatus has not been allowed 
to become rusty by disuse, or been stiffened by 
training into a different mode of action." 1 

This illustration of Dr. Carpenter is an ad- 
mirable description of the method by which the 
will influences, and perhaps operates the human 

1 Mental Physiology, by W. B, Carpenter, pp. 20, 21. 



206 visions. 

mechanism. Disease furnishes many illustrations 
of the same sort. The following incident, which 
came under the observation of the late Dr. John 
Ware of Boston, and was related by him to the 
author, as happily illustrates the power of the will 
over morbid processes, as that of Dr. Carpenter 
does its powe^ over healthy ones. Miss X., a 
bright intelligent girl, eighteen or twenty years 
old, had an attack of bronchitis which involved 
not only the bronchi, but her larynx and vocal ap- 
paratus. The attack was not severe or dangerous, 
but prolonged, and refused to yield readily to 
treatment. After a time she lost her voice. At 
length the bronchitis improved, but the aphonia 
obstinately persisted, without any indication of 
relief. While Miss X. was suffering in this way, 
a notorious charlatan appeared in Boston, who 
cured diseases in the old ecclesiastical way, by 
laying of hands on the affected region. Multitudes 
followed him. His fame was great, and spread, 
through all the region in the neighborhood of Bos- 
ton. Numerous stories were told of his healing 
gifts, and of the wonderful cures he wrought. As 
generally happens in such cases, not only the com- 
mon people and uneducated sought relief from him, 
but many intelligent persons were attracted to him. 
Some visited him, doubtless, from curiosity alone, 
but others were led by hope and faith as well. 
It was said that his hall was full of the crutches 
and canes of the rheumatic and infirm, who went 
thither stiff and lame, but who, cured by a touch 



VISIONS- 207 

and a word, left their artificial supports behind, as 
trophies of the healer's power, and walked away 
rejoicing and sound. The fame of the therapist 
reached the ears of Miss X. and her family, and 
excited in them the hope that he might restore her 
voice. After due deliberation, the consent of Dr. 
Ware was asked. This w^as readily given, and 
Miss X. repaired to the bureau of the dealer in 
cures. He heard her story, passed his hands 
somewhat roughly over her throat, told her to 
speak, and she spoke. Not long after she re- 
ported herself to Dr. Ware, who expressed much 
pleasure at the recovery of her voice, but did not 
seem to be surprised at the result. Miss X. was 
disappointed, perhaps a little nettled, by the 
Doctor's indifference. The aphonia, which was 
hysterical, did not return at once. Some time 
later, she called again upon Dr. Ware, and said to 
him : " Doctor, I wish to know the secret of the re- 
covery of my voice. At our last interview, you 
did not look or speak as if you thought the lay- 
ing on of hands had much to do with it." " I did 
not think so," was the Doctor's reply. He then en- 
deavored to explain to her the physiological proc- 
ess, by which her will, stimulated by novelty 
and hope and faith, had acted almost with electric 
energy upon the affected nerves, and secured the 
fortunate result. A year passed by and then 
Miss X. had a return of bronchitis and aphonia. 
She again put herself under the care of Dr. Ware, 
who, again finding the treatment he employed 



208 visions. 

ineffectual, himself proposed that recourse should 
be had to the charlatan. This was done. Miss X. 
repaired to the therapeutic bureau. The old proc- 
ess was repeated, and the old order given, but in 
vain. Her voice refused to return. The apho- 
nia would not be exorcised. Once more she 
sought Dr. Ware, who, suspecting the real cause 
of failure, told her that in consequence of his pre- 
vious physiological explanation, she had less faith 
than before, and had not on this occasion made 
sufficient effort. " Now," continued the Doctor, 
" if you choose, as you sit in that chair, to put all 
your will into the effort, and try with intense de- 
termination to speak, you will speak. Try it." " I 
will try," said Miss X. Determined, if will could do 
it, that there should be will enough, and redden- 
ing her cheeks in the struggle, she did her utmost 
to speak, and her voice returned and remained with 
her. In this instance, the will, playing upon the 
nervo-muscular centres of the complex vocal ap- 
paratus, acted as a powerful stimulant, and initiated 
the process of recovery. 

Many other instances might be adduced of the 
power of the will to influence the causation and 
progress of disease, but those just given are suffi- 
cient to show its power, not only over the nerve 
centres in general, but also over those which are 
apparently quite out of its reach. There is prob- 
ably no part of the body, which cannot be af- 
fected somewhat by volition. Even the lungs ac- 
knowledge its sway to a limited degree. Every 



visions. 209 

one knows that he can accelerate or slow his res- 
piration by a voluntary effort, though he cannot 
compel his lungs to cease from breathing perma- 
nently. The heart, which is rendered turbulent 
by emotion, sometimes and in some persons is 
obedient to the will. The familiar and celebrated 
case of Colonel Townshend is an illustration of 
the last statement. It is hardly necessary to 
quote the details of a case which is so well known. 
The Colonel, it will be remembered, told his phy- 
sician, Dr. Cheyne, that he could stop the beat- 
ing of his heart for a time and cause it to beat 
again whenever he chose to do so. Dr. Cheyne 
seeming astonished, perhaps incredulous, at such 
a statement, the Colonel proceeded to demon- 
strate its truth. He was sick and in bed, and the 
Doctor at his bedside. Presently the experiment 
began ; the Colonel's breathing became slow, and 
the beating of his heart slow also. Both respi- 
ration and cardiac pulsation grew slower and 
slower, till they ceased altogether. No pulsation 
could be felt over the heart or radial pulse. A 
dry watch glass, held over the Colonel's mouth, 
gave no evidence of moisture. The Doctor 
thought that his patient was really dead. After 
remaining nearly half an hour in this condition, 
the Colonel's heart began to beat, his lungs to 
act, and he was alive again. Dr. Cheyne, who 
reported this extraordinary phenomenon, was in 
his day a physician of repute and knowledge, and 
one not likely to be deceived. Mr, Skrine, an 

14 



210 VISIONS. 

apothecary, who was present, witnessed the occur- 
rence and confirmed the accuracy of Dr. Cheyne's 
observation. 1 By the light which physiology has 
recently thrown upon the functions and power of 
the nervous system, it appears to be by no means 
impossible that now and then an individual might 
be found, whose heart could be controlled by the 
will, even to the extent of stopping its apparent 
pulsation. 

These illustrations, and they might be multi- 
plied indefinitely, are enough to show that the 
force of volition extends, with varying degrees 
of power, throughout the whole organization. 
The will, or Ego, who is only known by his voli- 
tions, is a constitutional monarch, whose authority 
within certain limits is acknowledged throughout 
the sytem. If he chooses, like most monarchs, to 
extend his dominions and enlarge his power, he 
can do so. By a judicious exercise of his author- 
ity, employing direct rather than indirect meas- 
ures, he can make every organ his cheerful sub- 
ject. If on the other hand, he is careless of his 
position, sluggish and weary of constant vigilance 
and labor, he will find his authority slipping from 
him, and himself the slave of his ganglia. It 
would be singular, if in a system so admirably 
arranged and harmoniously adjusted as this, the 
visual ganglia should be the only ones withdrawn 
from the influence and authority of the will. Or 

1 It should be remembered that, in England, an apothecary is 
not a druggist, but a general practitioner. 



VISIONS. 211 

to change the figure, it would be singular, if in a 
mechanism of such harmony and perfection as the 
nervous system, the only part, withdrawn from the 
supervision of its engineer, should be a part so im- 
portant as the visual apparatus. Such cannot be 
the case. On the contrary, the influence of the 
will guarded by appropriate limitations must ex- 
tend beyond the eye to the tubercula quadrigem- 
ina, the angular gyri, and the ideational visual 
centres of the frontal lobes. That the Ego, who is 
known to us only as will or volition, can influence 
the process of vision is an inference from the pre- 
ceding considerations which amounts to demon- 
stration. This inference is not weakened, because 
the will sometimes or generally employs indirect, 
rather than direct measures for the accomplish- 
ment of its ends. If in order to produce an idea- 
tional picture in the frontal lobes, the will excites 
emotion, calls in the aid of association, and fixes 
attention and by these means compels the brain 
cells into forms which represent a picture, it is as 
much a factor in the visual operation, as if it did 
all the work itself. Under these circumstances it 
is the primum mobile — an initial force — a cause. 
Evidence is not altogether wanting, not of an 
inferential character, that the will acts on the in- 
tracranial visual apparatus. From the nature of 
the case, the evidence cannot be of the experi- 
mental character, upon which the physiologist 
relies, nor of the pathological character, upon 
which the pathologist relies ; yet it possesses a 



212 visions. 

value, second only to that of physiological experi- 
ment and pathological investigation. The weight 
which should be attached to it depends in every 
instance upon the individual who gives it — upon 
its quality, and not upon its quantity. It is the 
assertion of individuals that they can produce 
subjective vision by their own volition and have 
done so. Such evidence can of course, be received 
only after the most careful scrutiny. 

Two classes of persons make this assertion ; 
children and adults. The evidence derived from 
the first class is the most valuable, so far as it 
goes, for children are unprejudiced in this matter, 
and have no theories to uphold. They tell their 
story unaware of its value or bearing. The evi- 
dence derived from the second class must be re- 
ceived with great caution. Adults have theories 
and love to be the subject of marvels. 

Many children, especially very young children, 
possess the power, when they have closed their 
eyes in the dark, of surrounding themselves, by a 
simple act of volition, with a panorama of odd 
fights. The objects and persons evoked are not 
of a definite character, and are commonly queer 
and strange. They come in a throng, tumultu- 
ously, and disappear on opening the eyes. Most 
children who possess this power like to exercise 
it, and see the show, which they can call up in the 
darkness. Others are unwilling to exercise it, 
and are often afraid of going to bed in a dark 
room, on account of the crowd of ugly beings 



visions. 213 

which come floating in the air around them as 
they try to go to sleep. De Quincey, who was 
aware of this peculiarity in children, speaks of it 
in connection with the effects of opium upon him- 
self : " The first notice," he says, " I had of any 
important change going on in this part of my 
physical economy, was from the reawaking of a 
state of eye generally incident to childhood or 
exalted states of irritability. I know not whether 
my reader is aware that many children, perhaps 
most, have a power of painting as it were upon 
the darkness, all sorts of phantoms : in some that 
power is simply a mechanic affection of the eye ; 
others have a voluntary or semi-voluntary power 
to dismiss or summon them ; or, as a child once 
said to me, when I questioned him on this matter, 
* I can tell them to go, and they go ; but some- 
times they come when I don't tell them to come.' 
Whereupon I told him that he had almost as un- 
limited a command over apparitions as a Roman 
centurion over his soldiers." a An acquaintance 
of the author, who is now between fifty and sixty 
years of age, says that in his childhood, after clos- 
ing his eyes at night he could and often did, by 
an act of volition, call troops of queer forms around 
him. As years passed on and manhood approached, 
he lost the power of subjective vision, and though 
he has frequently tried since childhood, to people 
the darkness in the old way, he has never been 
able to do so. The subject of the fourth case of 
1 Confessions, etc., p. 109. 



214 visions. 

the preceding series, a most intelligent observer, 
says in her account : " My earliest recollections 
are of a life made miserable by the daily compan- 
ionship of a crowd of dreadful beings, visible, I 
knew, only to myself." In her case the cerebral 
condition, which induces visions, was so pro- 
nounced that her childhood's atmosphere was in- 
habited with phantoms, whether her eyelids were 
lifted or closed. I retain myself at the present 
time, a vivid recollection of the sights which I 
was able to conjure up in childhood, in the dark- 
ness of evening or night, by shutting my eyes. I 
did not learn till after pseudopia had been pro- 
duced by opium, in the manner previously de- 
scribed, that I possessed the power of voluntarily 
summoning such companions about me. It was 
only on rare occasions that I could do so by an 
act of volition. Generally, after closing my eyes, 
I was obliged to wait for the phantoms to come of 
themselves. Since childhood I have frequently 
endeavored to produce the same result, in the 
same way, but in vain. A lady now over seventy 
years of age, informs the writer that she was 
greatly troubled at night, during her childhood, 
with involuntary pseudopia. For a long time she 
believed the phantoms were realities, and sought 
to escape from them by pressing her hands firmly 
over both eyes, as the ostrich is said to avoid his 
enemies by hiding his head in the sand. As years 
passed on her phantom power disappeared, and 
now it exists only in her memory. 



visions. 215 

It will be noticed that this form of pseudopia, 
which may be appropriately called the pseudopia of 
childhood, is of two kinds, voluntary and involun- 
tary, and that the latter predominates very largely 
over the former. The involuntary sort is doubt- 
less what De Quincey calls " mechanic " in its 
character, that is, produced, as muscae volitantes 
are, by changes in the contents of the globe of the 
eye, or by automatic cerebro- visual action. The 
voluntary sort is, of course, independent of any 
mechanical disturbance of the eyeball, and results 
chiefly from changes in the cerebral circulation. 
Both show how easily the delicate nerve centres of 
children may be disturbed ; and, what is of more 
importance to our present purpose, both show that 
the brain can be made, without great difficulty, to 
put together the organic cell-representatives of 
pictorial ideas : for, although the objects seen are 
always of an odd, strange, indefinite, and perhaps 
frightful character, it is not to be denied that they 
are pictorial and that the brain produces them. 
It is also shewn by the evidence adduced that 
while the most of them are produced by a process 
of automatic cerebral action, others are the result 
of a process, into the initiation of which volition 
enters as a factor. 

It is a matter of surprise that this phantom 
power of childhood has not excited more interest 
than it has done, among psychologists and physi- 
ologists. Its appearance in childhood, when the 
nerve centres are delicate, imperfectly developed, 



216 visions. 

mobile, and impressible ; its disappearance in ma- 
ture years, when the nerve tissues are developed, 
harder, less mobile, and less impressible ; and its 
reappearance at the very close of life, when, as 
dissolution approaches, the nerve centres are ex- 
ceptionally disturbed, often producing visions of 
the dying ; these phenomena are all curious, sig- 
nificant, and worthy of study. 

Evidence derived from the second class of per- 
sons, or adults, as to the power of the will to pro- 
duce objective pseudopia, is not easily obtained. 
Few possess any such power, though there may be 
multitudes who pretend to it ; and those who pos- 
sess it are neither fond of exercising it, nor of 
being questioned with regard to it. The subject 
of Case VII. , a man whose large scientific attain- 
ments and careful intellectual training entitle his 
testimony to great weight, says, in his report of his 
own visions, that he was tempted to ascertain if 
he could not produce them by an act of volition, 
and adds : — 

" I was particularly fond of statuary, and, after a few 
trials, succeeded in producing visions of statues by 
simply fixing my imagination strongly upon the mem- 
ory of what I had seen, or upon what occurred to me, 
as a good subject for groups. I repeated the experi- 
ment, however, but few times, fearing it might lead to 
some injurious result." 

Goethe could at will produce, for his own study 
and examination, subjective copies of pictures and 
works of art which he had seen. He describes his 
faculty of doing this in the following language : — 



VISIONS. 211 

" As I entered my sister's house for dinner, I could 
scarcely trust my eyes, for I believed I saw before me 
a picture by Ostade so distinctly that it might have 
been hanging in a gallery. I saw here actualized the 
position of objects, the light and shade and brownish 
tints and exquisite harmony, and all which is so much 
admired in his pictures. This was the first time that I 
discovered, in so high a degree, the gift, which I after- 
wards used with more complete consciousness, of bring- 
ing before me the characteristics of this or that artist, 
to whose works I had devoted great attention. This 
faculty has given me great enjoyment, but it has also in- 
creased the desire of zealously indulging, from time to 
time, the exercise of a talent, which nature seems to 
have promised me." 1 

Nicolai of Berlin strenuously endeavored to in- 
duce pseudopia by an act of volition, but never 
succeeded in doing more than to bring before him- 
self what he called phantoms ; that is, he produced 
ideational cerebral pictures, but could not, as 
Goethe did, project them into space before him. 
Nevertheless, the testimony of so accurate an ob- 
server as Nicolai to the fact that be could, by 
voluntary effort, excite or modify to any extent, 
however little, his visual cerebral apparatus, is im- 
portant. 

The evidence presented, that volition is a factor 
in the production of pseudopia, and may initiate 
pseudopia, is cumulative, and not easily set aside. 
It is threefold. First : the inference, that as voli- 

1 Aus meinem Leben Wahrheit und Dichtung, Achtes Buch, 
Goethe's sammtliche Werke, Stuttgart, 1863. 



218 visions. 

tion influences, directly or indirectly, by means of 
communicating nerves, every part of the organ- 
ization where its action can be traced, it must 
also be connected with the intracranial mechan- 
ism of vision, and have some influence over that, 
though its action cannot be traced there directly. 
Second : the pseudopia of children demonstrates 
in them an influence over it of volition ; and 
third: the assertion of two careful and unpreju- 
diced persons that they could produce, and had 
produced, pseudopia in themselves by an act of 
volition. These facts warrant the conclusion that 
the will can influence the production of visions. 

Before making any practical application of the 
physiological and other principles, which have 
hitherto occupied our attention, it would be well 
to present a brief summary of the course of 
thought which has been followed. The argument 
is this. 

1. Such a number and variety of persons, every- 
where and in all ages, have asserted their belief 
in visions, and have maintained, with every rea- 
sonable appearance and proof of sincerity, their 
ability to see visions, and the fact of having done 
so, that a presumption is raised in favor of the 
truth of their assertion ; and, consequently, science 
is obliged either to disprove the appearance of 
visions altogether, or to give a rational explana- 
tion of such phenomena. 

2. Eight cases of pseudopia, occurring in per- 
sons of education and intelligence, carefully ob- 



VISIONS. 219 

served and recognized by the subjects of them 
as pseudopia, and recorded in this essay, con- 
firm the presumption raised by the experience of 
mankind, and demonstrate the fact that visions 
occur. 

3. The key to the explanation of pseudopia, or 
visions, is to be found by studying and compre- 
hending orthopia, or the process of normal vision. 
Sight is not a function of the eye alone, but of a 
complex and delicate apparatus of which the 
greater part is lodged within the cranium. 

4. This apparatus is composed of sections, each 
having its own centre, and being connected with 
the other centres by inter-communicating fibres, 
and in correspondence with the higher cerebral 
centres of perception, ideation, and volition. 

5. Perception of visible objects, or consciousness 
of seeing, does not take place in the eye. This 
begins in the lowest of the intracranial visual cen- 
tres ; and in each ascending centre becomes of a 
higher character. Perception varies with the per- 
ceiving centre, and is highest in the frontal lobes, 
where it becomes apperception or thought. 

6. Some account of the reflex or automatic 
action of the nervous system is given, so as to 
show how each ganglionic nerve centre is capable 
of independent action, and has its own conscious- 
ness without self consciousness. 

7. The visual apparatus is normally operated 
by the stimulus of rays of light, falling on the 
retina from a visible object, and propagating an 



220 visions. 

action to each centre above, till the frontal lobes 
are reached. 

8. In abnormal conditions, stimuli originating 
in the brain, without the presence of any external 
object, may excite any of the centres of the visual 
apparatus, and set the process of vision going 
from that point. 

9. Every object, making an impression on the 
brain or visual apparatus, leaves an organic trace 
there, which may be reproduced at an indefinite 
period afterwards by cerebral action. 

10. Pictures of external objects are not trans- 
mitted from the eye to the brain, but only visual 
reports of such objects. These reports are trans- 
mitted from centre to centre (telegrams), each 
centre employing for that purpose its own cell- 
groups and other contents. 

11. Visual sensory impressions are carried up 
to the frontal lobes, and there translated into 
ideas. In rare instances, ideas may send down an 
influence, and be translated into sensory impres- 
sions in a lower centre. 

12. Hence seeing is a matter of the brain, and 
not of the eye ; the eye only transmits impres- 
sions. 

13. The brain cells, acting under subjective 
stimuli, may arrange themselves in such a way as 
to represent a vision, that is sight, when no ex 
ternal object, corresponding to it, exists. 

14. Various influences, as habit, association, at- 
tention, emotion, disease, blood changes, and voli- 



VISIONS. 221 

tion may put the visual apparatus in motion and 
produce visions. 

The annexed diagram, in which the visual 
nerve centres are arranged without any regard to 
their actual anatomical position, and in which 
other centres are hypothetically arranged, will 
enable the reader to understand, better than any 
description can do, the mechanism of vision, as it 
has here been explained. 

Rays of light from a visible object, falling on 
the retina of the eye (No. 1), set in motion the 
machinery of that centre. The result is a visual 
message which is transmitted to the tubercula 
quadrigemina and optic thalami, or centre No. 2. 
In this centre, the message is coordinated with 
the voluntary muscular system, classified and 
transmitted to the angular gyrus, or centre No. 8. 
In this centre, the visual message is translated 
into sensory pictorial cell-groups, representing the 
details of individuals, houses, trees, flowers, ani- 
mals, faces, expressions, and all the panorama of 
life. Thus elaborated, the message is transmitted 
to the ideational centre No. 4. 

In No. 4 the sensory messages or pictorial rep- 
resentations are transformed into ideas, as sen- 
sation in a spinal ganglion is transformed into 
motion. The visual ideas are transmitted to No. 
5, the workshop of intellection or apperception. 

In No. 5, the visual ideas are examined, com- 
pared and judged ; and the results communicated 
to the centre of volition, the residence of the Ego. 



Centres' of 
ZnfeZtecfon. 



MUe&SionaT 
JBicAirm 



ten/res of 



H JTaS/A 




dssociat/oft 



€(h0&£?znt&\ 



JietznctZ 



Centre, 



visions. 223 

The hypothetical centres of attention, habit, 
association, emotion, and sensation, numbered on 
the diagram 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, are in constant 
and close communication with each other, with 
the centres of the visual apparatus, and with all 
the cerebral centres. Avenues of reciprocal com- 
munication are thus opened between all parts of 
the brain, by means of internuncial nerve fibres. 

The vaso-motor-centre, No. 11, by its control 
of the calibre of the arterioles, regulates the sup- 
ply of blood, so that more or less blood is fur- 
nished on demand to any one of the centres, or to 
all of them, or to the whole brain. 

No special centre is assigned to memory, for 
each organ, or centre, or faculty, to use a meta- 
physical term, has its own memory. Each cell 
makes and keeps its own record. 

The centre of volition, No. 12, is in connection 
with every organ, centre and cell, of the cerebro- 
spinal system. All report to it. It acts with 
greater or less energy on all. 

Explanation op Diagram. — 1, The Eye. 2, Tubercula Quadrigemina. 
3, Angular Gyrus. 4, Ideational Visual Centre. 5, Centre of Intellection or 
Apperception. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, are the Hypothetical centres of attention, habit, 
association, emotion, and common sensation (sensorium commune). 11, Vaso- 
motor centre of cerebral blood supply. 12, Centre of Volition. The dotted 
line indicates the connection of all the centres with volition. The arrows in- 
dicate the course of visual rays, aa', bV, cC, dd 7 , ee', nerve fibres connect- 
ing the centres with each other. 



224 VISIONS. 



PAET II. 



The considerations presented in the first part 
of this essay have prepared the way for a rational 
and satisfactory explanation of all forms of pseud- 
opia, and to some extent have anticipated that 
explanation. They have also prepared the way 
for an application of the principles here ex- 
pounded, to medicine, legal medicine, and psychol- 
ogy, and to some of the demands upon the faith 
of mankind, made by religion and spiritualism and 
individual enthusiasts — visionists. 

The key to an explanation of pseudopia is the 
fact, which has been repeatedly stated and em- 
phasized in these pages, that sight is not a func- 
tion of the eyes but of the brain. Human sight 
is not accomplished till sensory impressions are 
transformed into ideas, and this is done in the 
hemispheres. When this is done — when the or- 
ganic basis of visual ideas is formed there, seeing 
takes place, whether there is any corresponding 
external object or not. A vision is produced 
whenever the cell groups, indicating that vision — 
its hieroglyphic or cipher — are formed in the 
brain, whether they are formed normally, by the 
stimulus of light waves from an external object, 
or abnormally, by a stimulus initiated intracra- 
nially. 



visions. 225 

There appear to be four ways by which visions 
may be induced, of which three are pointed out 
by the philosophic observer, who, himself the sub- 
ject of one of the preceding cases, derived his con- 
clusions from his own experience. The four ways 
are these. First, the normal and ordinary way, 
by which waves of light from a visible object 
falling on the retina of the eye (Fig. 4, No. 1) 
set the whole visual apparatus in motion, in the 
manner already described, producing sensory vis- 
ion in the angular gyri, and ideated vision higher 
up. The movements of the visual apparatus, 
vibrating along the nerve fibres, as roughly indi- 
cated by arrows in the same figure, act simulta- 
neously on the centres of attention, association, 
habit, emotion, volition, and the like. Second, 
an abnormal and simple automatic way by which 
a stimulus from without (objective), as a shadow, 
or a stimulus from within (subjective), as opium, 
striking when objective, the retina of the eye, 
when subjective, one or more of the intracranial 
centres (Fig. 4, Nos. 2, 3, or 4), initiates a custom- 
ary sort of motion in the visual apparatus, which 
determines the apparatus to produce of itself, 
automatically, the cell-groups and modifications, 
that is to go through an habitual action, repre- 
senting some external object. By this process a 
vision is produced. The process is like the au- 
tomatic walking of a somnambulist, when a sound, 
or movement, or dream, has started him upon his 
unconscious peregrinations. Third, an abnor- 

15 



226 visions. 

mal and complex automatic way, by which at- 
tention, association, habit, emotion, volition, and 
cognate forces (Fig. 4, Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 
12), stimulated subjectively or objectively, play 
upon the visual apparatus, till they compel one or 
more of its centres into activity. When this is 
accomplished, the automatic action of the visual 
apparatus reinforces the automatic action of the 
forces just mentioned, and under their combined 
influence, cell-groups and modifications are finally 
formed, which, being the organic basis of a pre- 
viously known object, person, or scene, vision is 
produced. As soon as the subjective vision is 
produced the object or person represented is pro- 
jected into space, and seen as if present there. 
In this way, intense emotion brings out under 
favorable conditions and before impressible per- 
sons, the faces and forms of the dead. Fourth, an 
abnormal and volitional way, by which volition 
(Fig. 4, No. 12), stimulated to the highest de- 
gree, and summoning to its aid fixed attention, 
association, habit, emotion, and all other forces at 
its command, plays with its utmost energy upon 
the angular gyrus (Fig. 4, No. 3), or some other 
centre, and drives its machinery into operation. 
If this can be accomplished, vision is accomplished. 
The gift which Goethe said nature bestowed upon 
him, by which he was able to reproduce, volun- 
tarily, familiar pictures and project them into 
space before his eyes, is an illustration of this 
rare form of pseudopia. These four sorts of vis- 



visions. 227 

ions may be appropriately designated as follows : 
(1.) orthopia; (2.) simple automatic pseudopia ; 
(3.) complex automatic pseudopia; (4.) volitional 
pseudopia. 

The first of the preceding series of cases, the 
one in which pseudopia occurred in connection 
with delirium tremens, belongs to the class of 
complex, automatic pseudopia. The subject of 
it saw, it will be remembered, during convales- 
cence, in the daytime, and in the presence of the 
writer, a black dog, which, standing on a bureau, 
leaped upon the floor and disappeared. At an- 
other time, he mistook his wife for a burglar. 
On both occasions, he recognized the subjective 
character of his visions. So natural were the ap- 
pearances, however, that if his previous experi- 
ence had not convinced him of the untrustwor- 
thiness of his eyes, he would have entertained no 
doubt as to the presence of a dog at one time, and 
a burglar at another. 

The physiological explanation of his visions is 
not difficult. He had taken alcoholic drinks suf- 
ficiently long, and in sufficient quantity to pro- 
duce delirium tremens. This affection does not 
come on after one potation, however large, or 
after several potations. It appears only after 
alcohol has been taken continuously for a consid- 
erable period, and when, as a result of thus soak- 
ing the brain in spirits, an organic change has 
taken place in the cerebral tissues. All the nerve 
cells are affected. The derangement of the mo 



228 visions. 

tor centres is shown by tremors, muscular weak- 
ness, and locomotor disturbance ; that of the au- 
ditory centres, by unearthly noises and strange 
cries, which beset the victim; that of the olfac- 
tory and gustatory centres, by whims of smell and 
taste ; that of the ideo-motor centres, by phanta- 
sies ; and that of the visual centres, by subjective 
visions. Groups of cells and cell modifications, 
with which the brain has long been familiar, are 
thrown confusedly together in the brain of the 
drunkard, upon the least hint afforded by the 
character of his surroundings, and become the 
organic representatives of visions, which are as 
confused, unmeaning, and strange, as the cell 
groups themselves. " The perceptions," says 
Hammond, " the emotions, the intellect, and the 
will are all implicated to a greater or less ex- 
tent." x Such was the condition of Mr. C.'s 
brain. In this condition, rays of light from some 
ornament on his bureau, falling on the retina, 
called out in one of his visual centres, probably 
in the angular gyri, cells which were part of a 
sensory group, stowed away in his brain, as the 
representative of a familiar black dog. These 
cells, aided by habit and association, called around 
ihem other cells, accustomed to cluster together, 
whenever the black dog appeared. Soon, by 
action and reaction, the representative group was 
formed, and consequently the appearance of a dog 
telegraphed to the centres above, which accepted 

1 Diseases of the Nervous System, p. 851. 



visions. 229 

the report as correct. The picture of the animal 
was then projected into space, and the vision ac- 
complished. By a similar process, his wife be- 
came a burglar. He had been a soldier, and had 
commanded troops in active service for years. 
Life of the camp, the march, and the battle had 
stored away in the recesses of his brain numerous 
sensory cell groups, the organic souvenirs of ugly 
faces, rascals, and villains. Something about his 
wife's dress started up the first cell, or cell group, 
belonging to some scamp he had seen ; that cell 
started up a companion one, and soon the whole 
thing went of itself, so that the vision of the burg- 
lar was complete. The elements of Mr. C.'s alco- 
holized brain were in an unstable condition readily 
thrown into strange and unnatural groups, which 
were as readily dissolved again. His will had as 
little control over them as over his locomotor ap- 
paratus. His sensory and ideational and volitional 
cells were as weak and shaky as his motor ones. 

The pseudopia of Mr. C, due to poisoning of 
his brain by alcohol, not only illustrates one of 
the results of alcoholic poisoning, but may be 
taken as an illustration of a similar cerebral con- 
dition, induced by the illegitimate use of a num- 
ber of other drugs. The visions of opium, ether, 
chloroform, cannabis Indica, belladonna, and kin- 
dred articles, of which the cerebral action has 
been noticed, belong to the class o| complex auto- 
matic pseudopia. Although these agents possess 
an elective action for one part or function of the 



230 VISIONS. 

intra-cranial mass in preference to other parts or 
functions, yet they affect all parts somewhat. 
They appear to act with peculiar energy on the 
visual and ideational centres, and also to disturb 
other parts, so that the force with which volition, 
attention, sensation, habit, association, and emotion 
play upon the visual mechanism and frontal lobes 
is sometimes increased, sometimes diminished, and 
always irregular. 

There are two or three points with regard to 
the vision power o*f these drugs, which were not 
mentioned when they were previously considered, 
and which may be appropriately described here. 

The physiological action of opium is properly 
divided by those who have investigated it, into two 
stages ; a primary stage of stimulation, and a sec- 
ondary stage of depression. In the primary stage, 
the functions of the nervous system, and especially 
those of the cerebrum, are exalted ; in the second- 
ary stage the same functions are depressed. The 
primary stage is the delight of the opium eater ; 
the secondary stage is the one chiefly employed by 
therapeutists. During the period of exaltation, 
the visual machinery and ideo-motor apparatus are 
stimulated to extraordinary activity, and some- 
times produce extraordinary results. The action 
is so clearly automatic, that the opium lover seeks 
to retire alone, by himself, and watch and enjoy 
the shifting movements of his cerebral panorama, 
as if they were the scenes of a play. The writ- 
er's opium experience in childhood, to which ref- 



visions. 231 

erence was made in connection with the report of 
Mr. C.'s case, confirms this statement. He re- 
calls distinctly the passive condition in which he 
used to lie and wait for the show, as if he were 
only a spectator. De Quincey, whose account of 
the action of opium should not, as was previously 
hinted, be trusted too implicitly, vividly and ac- 
curately describes, in the following language, the 
power of opium to reproduce, automatically, the 
past : — 

" As the creative state of the eye increased, a sympathy 
seemed to arise between the waking and the dreaming 
states of the brain in one point, — that whatsoever I 
happened to call up and to trace by a voluntary act upon 
the darkness was very apt to transfer itself to my dreams ; 
so that I feared to exercise this faculty ; for, as Midas 
turned all things to gold, that yet baffled his hopes and 
defrauded his human desires, so whatsoever things cap- 
able of being visually represented I did but think of in 
the darkness, immediately shaped themselves into phan- 
toms of the eye ; and, by a process apparently no less 
inevitable, when thus once traced in faint and visionary 
colors, like writings in sympathetic ink, they were drawn 
out, by the fierce chemistry of my dreams, into insuffer- 
able splendor that fretted my heart." 

From this exaltation, the primary stage of the 
action of opium, he passed to the secondary one 
of depression, which is thus described : — 

" For this, and all other changes in my dreams, were 
accompanied by deep-seated anxiety and gloomy mel- 
ancholy, such as are wholly incommunicable by words. 



232 visions. 

I seemed every night to descend — not metaphorically, 
but literally to descend — into chasms and sunless abys- 
ses, depths below depths, from which it seemed hopeless 
that I could ever reascend. Nor did I, by waking, feel 
that I had reascended. This I do not dwell upon ; be- 
cause the state of gloom which attended these gor- 
geous spectacles, amounting at least to utter darkness, 
as of some suicidal despondency, cannot be approached 
by words." 1 

The importance of this statement consists in the 
distinctness with which it brings into view the 
automatic action of the visual and ideational ap- 
paratus, and so far confirms the explanation which 
has been given, of Mr. C.'s vision of the dog and 
burglar, an explanation applicable to all similar 
visions. 

The explanation of the intense enjoyment which 
some derive from opium eating may be found in 
its stimulating the creative power of the brain. 
F. W. Faber says, in one of his letters, " The 
greatest pleasure of life arises from the felt sense of 
power : the greatest intellectual pleasure is the 
sense of intellectual power : for creative energy is 
clearly the most luxurious, and it is power solely." 
This is not the language of exaggeration. The 
creative force which opium stimulates is that of 
re-creating the past ; and in doing so, it yields a 
pleasure second only to that which attends the exer- 
cise of original creative energy. Let no one im- 

1 Confessions, etc., pp. 109-10. 

2 Life and Letters of F. W. Faber, p. 45. 






visions. 233 

agine, however, that by means of opium he can 
extract from his brain anything beyond what is 
native to it, a fact which did not escape the notice 
of the brilliant author of the " Confessions." A 
butcher, who takes to opium, will probably dream 
of oxen, and see pictures of beef ; a poet will be 
transported to the dreamy splendors of Xanadu 
and Kubla Khan. Wind touching an JEolian 
harp will call forth, not the notes of an organ, 
flute, or viol, but the strains of a harp. Blood 
charged with opium, and flowing through the 
delicate chords of the brain, will not make them 
vibrate with the ideas of Plato, Shakespeare, 
Goethe, or Emerson, but only with those of the 
experimenter. 

The reason for dwelling at considerable length, 
in the first part of this essay, upon the reflex, or 
automatic power of the nervous system is now 
apparent. It was necessary to acquire a clear and 
definite notion of that power, and its modus oper- 
andi, before it could be shown that the visual 
centre and other centres of special sense are obe- 
dient to it, and that it is capable of explaining the 
appearance and mechanism of visions. The whole 
visual apparatus may be regarded, from this point 
of view, as a single ganglionic nerve centre. In 
orthopia, a visual stimulus, consisting of the motion 
of waves of light, impinges upon it from without, 
through the eye, objectively, and is transformed 
into sensory and ideational pictures ; and these into 
ideas, a reflex action, automatic, just as sensation, 



234 visions. 

transformed by a spinal ganglion into motion, is a 
reflex action. In pseudopia the only difference is 
that the visual stimulus, which impinges on the 
visual apparatus, and causes the transformation of 
sensory into ideational action, comes from within 
the head. In both cases, reflex machinery is put 
into operation, and is worked by ganglionic nerve 
power. In Mr. C.'s case, his alcoholized visual 
centre, catching a shadowy hint, as previously de- 
scribed, from without, and aided by an alcoholized 
brain, transformed the hint by reflex action into a 
black dog. 

Allusion has been frequently made throughout 
these pages to sensory and ideational pictures. 
They are not the same, and it is important to ac- 
quire a distinct notion of the difference between 
them. The following incident will illustrate the 
difference better than a formal description. Some 
months ago, I had occasion to take an average 
dose of laudanum, at night, for the relief of pain. 
The desired relief was obtained. I was surprised 
the next morning, however, to see, on awaking, 
hanging up on the wall of my chamber, near the 
ceiling, a mask or masked face of very large pro- 
portions. After a moment's amazement I re- 
membered the previous night's dose of laudanum, 
and my childhood's paregoric visions, and recog- 
nized in the mask one of the pranks of opium, but 
I had not time to get more than one good look at 
the object before it vanished. During the day I 
tried in vain to make out what the mask was 



visions. 235 

which opium had picked out of my past experience. 
I could not remember ever to have seen its like. 
Reflecting upon the pseudopia the next day, I en- 
deavored to recall it in all its details. I could re- 
member how it looked, and bring before me a 
clear idea of it, but I could not project it into space. 
While doing this, it suddenly flashed upon me that 
it was the Greek mask of Tragedy which had ob- 
truded itself into my field of subjective vision, 
and so it clearly was. The first picture — the 
pseudopia — was a sensory one; the second, which 
memory gathered up, was an ideational one. The 
organic basis of the first was doubtless a group of 
long disused cells in the angular gyri ; the organic 
basis of the second, a group of cells in the frontal 
lobes. The sensory picture was projected into 
space ; the ideational one remained an idea. The 
probable explanation of this pseudopia is, that in 
the early morning light, the brain still muddled 
and unstable in consequence of exposure to opium, 
a ray of light shot from a figure on the wall paper 
to the retina, which stimulated the visual appara- 
tus to reproduce the cell group of a mask, seen in a 
theatre or elsewhere, and that group automatically 
called out cells enough to complete the picture. 

Subjective sights and sounds, flashes of light 
and strange noises, often occur in epilepsy. They 
commonly immediately precede an approaching 
paroxysm, and give warning of it. In rare in- 
stances true pseudopia is manifested, and when 
such is the case, the patient can only be persuaded 



236 visions. 

with great difficulty to distrust his own eyes. It 
is not long since an epileptic was found in Eng- 
land, quietly sleeping off a convulsive paroxysm 
on a public road, by the side of a man he had 
killed. Why the crime was committed could not 
be ascertained, but it is probable that the mur- 
derer was deceived by pseudopia, preceding a con- 
vulsion, into the commission of the deed. The 
visions of epilepsy, like those of delirium tremens, 
evidently belong to the class of complex auto- 
matic pseudopia. They are well illustrated by 
the second of the preceding series of cases, in 
which there were visions of a man on horseback 
in a flower garden, of flowing water, soldiers, 
flocks of animals, and other objects. The process 
by which these visions were produced is not so 
apparent as in the first case, but a shrewd guess 
may be made with regard to it. 

The pathology of epilepsy is not yet well as- 
certained. Sometimes it results from the reflex 
disturbance of eccentric irritation, like teething, 
or the presence of foreign matters in the alimen- 
tary canal ; sometimes, from an irritant within 
the cranium, as a spiculum of bone ; and some- 
times from disease of the highest nerve centres. 
It frequently occurs, however, when nothing can 
be discovered after death to account for it. Re- 
cent researches indicate, if they do not demon- 
strate, that the vaso- motor nerves, by their in- 
fluence in suddenly and temporarily producing 
anaemia, or hyperemia, of the sensorium, lead to 



visions. 237 

epileptic convulsions. Such sudden disturbance 
of the sensorial circulation would be sufficient to 
account for the visions of epilepsy, as well as for 
epilepsy itself. Irritation of the vaso-motor cen- 
tre, by producing contraction of the arterioles, 
would induce anemia of the sensorium, conges- 
tion, or sufficient pressure upon the same centre 
would lead to an opposite state of the arterioles, 
and consequently to hyperemia of the sensorium. 
In both cases the blood supply, the vast impor- 
tance of which has been pointed out, would be sud- 
denly and seriously changed. The influence of 
this can be scarcely overestimated. The intimate 
anatomical connection of the visual apparatus 
with the sensorium is such that whatever affects 
the circulation of the latter, reacts at once upon 
that of the former. It would be strange, when 
any such disturbance occurs, if now and then a 
group of old visual cells should not be thrown up 
into the field of subjective vision, and attract to 
itself associated groups, which would excite the 
automatic action of the visual machinery to pro- 
duce a complete vision. In this case, sensory pic- 
tures rather than ideational ones would be formed, 
and would be likely to appear and disappear with 
changes in the circulation. 

The doctrine that perception is centric, and 
not eccentric, which is here applied to the visual 
apparatus in explanation of the appearance of 
visions, is not confined in its application to that 
apparatus. On the contrary, it is the application 



238 visions. 

of a general physiological law to the process of 
vision. It is not unusual, for example, for an in- 
dividual to complain, weeks, months, or years after 
the amputation of a limb, foot, or hand, of pain 
in the amputated part. The sensation has been 
so strong in some instances, that a foot or hand 
which had been laid peacefully away has been 
dug up, in order to ascertain if there were not 
something torturing it. The accepted and dem- 
onstrated explanation of this physiological phe- 
nomenon is the same as the preceding one of 
pseudopia. When pain occurs in a toe or finger, 
the fact is telegraphed to the spinal centre of the 
affected member, and from thence to the appro- 
priate cerebral centre. Perception of the pain 
takes place in the brain and is projected to the 
periphery. Let T., S., and C. represent the toe, 
its spinal centre and cerebral centre respectively. 
Pain occurring in T. is telegraphed to S., and 
thence to C. The office of S. is to send telegrams 
from T. to C. In case of the destruction of T., 
by amputation of the foot, pain may be felt in S. 
or in C, in consequence of irritation in those cen- 
tres, at any indefinite period after the operation. 
When felt in either of those centres it will be 
referred to T., whether the latter is attached to 
the body or lies at the bottom of the ocean. The 
general law is that in a certain class of eases, pain 
perceived at the centre is referred to some point 
in the circumference. The analogy between this 
and 'he previous explanation of pseudopia is evi- 



visions. 239 

dent, and it lends additional confirmation to the 
truth of the explanation. 

The third case, that of Mrs. B., is remarkable 
for the distinctness of the vision, for its appear- 
ance by daylight, and for the sort of personal 
identity which the phantom sustained. From the 
fact that it appeared only in connection with some 
general febrile disturbance, it is evident that it 
belonged to the class of complex automatic pseud- 
opia, and admits of the same explanation as 
others of that class. It should not be forgotten 
that headache frequently acompanied Mrs. B.'s 
febrile attacks, and sometimes proved to be a 
warning of the approach of her ghostly friend. 
It is impossible to gather from her account the de- 
tails of the process, by which old and disused cell 
groups were so completely revived. All the con- 
ditions, however, for the production of pseudopia 
were present. She was naturally endowed with 
an excitable and nervous temperament. She wit- 
nessed in childhood an occurrence — a death — un- 
der circumstances of distress and horror, such as 
are seen by few, and which made a profound and 
permanent impression upon her. Her emotions 
were excited, at the time, to such a degree, that 
she could never afterwards allude to the event 
without distress. Later in life she became sub- 
ject to the febrile attacks just mentioned, which 
were attended with slight cerebral congestion. 
At such periods the brain cells, including those 
of the visual apparatus, were temporarily flashed 



240 visions. 

with blood, and therefore just in the state to be 
called into activity by the slightest stimulus. It 
is probable that her pseudopia was, in some rec- 
ondite way, connected with the terrible occur- 
rence she witnessed in childhood, though she could 
never make out the chain of connection. How- 
ever that may be, it is apparent that whenever 
the current of blood poured freely through the 
machinery of vision, cell-groups, which had been 
deeply stamped by some scene of which the 
phantom figure was the outcome, were revived ; 
and as soon as this was accomplished, association, 
habit, and allied influences, playing on the visual 
apparatus, would set its automatic machinery at 
work, and produce her customary pseudopia. 

The next case, which is reported by Miss , 

the subject of it, is an illustration of what may be 
called a pseudopic habit. Pseudopia occurred 
with her in childhood, to such an extent as to 
torment her ; then ceased for a while ; and later 
in life returned. Her case, like the previous ones, 
is an instance of complex automatic pseudopia, not 
only the visual apparatus, but the whole cere- 
brum being implicated. It is not difficult to give 
a satisfactory physiological explanation of her 
visions. She was congenitally endowed with a 
sensitive nervous organization, and in childhood 
exhibited an unusual proclivity to the pseudopia 
of that age. The hard experience of anxiety, 
long illnesses, sorrow, and bereavement, to which 
she was exposed in later years, had a tendency to 



VISIONS. 241 

develop, rather than repress the idiosyncrasies of 
her nervous system. Her emotional nature was 
sorely exercised, and sorely tried. Great anxiety 
and exhaustion predisposes to visions, just as star- 
vation makes its victims dream of savory repasts, 

and tables loaded with food. Miss was often 

exposed both to anxiety and exhaustion, and she 
herself notices in her report that visions beset her 
only or chiefly when she was anxious or exhausted. 
The cells of her visual and other nerve centres 
were then in their most mobile and sensitive state, 
readily gathered into groups, by any stimulus 
however slight, and became the basis of sensory 
and ideational conceptions. Under such circum- 
stances, automatic action would exercise its larg- 
est, and volition its least control. The frontal 
lobes would partake of the disorder, so that her 
power of analysis and correct interpretation would 
be weakened, if not temporarily destroyed. In 
this condition, a shadow from the wall, or from a 
curtain fold, or group of clothes, or from almost 
anything would be sufficient, reaching a visual 
centre, to stimulate it into activity, and pseudopia 

would result. The figure which Miss saw 

was undoubtedly formed in this way. Some slight 
stimulus acted on her visual apparatus, the au- 
tomatic action of which produced the sensory cell-, 
groups of the figure and projected it into space. 
It was actualized. She saw it though it did not 
exist. Sir Walter Scott, in his " Demonology and 
Witchcraft," describes a vision of Lord Byron, ini- 

16 



242 visions. 

tiated in this way, with which he was favored, and 
which he had the insight and good sense to ex- 
plain correctly : — 

" Passing from his sitting-room into the entrance-hall, 
fitted up with the skins of wild beasts, armor, etc., he 
saw right before him, and in a standing posture, the ex- 
act representation of his departed friend, whose recollec- 
tion had been so strongly brought to his imagination. 
He stopped for a single moment, so as to notice the 
wonderful accuracy with which fancy had impressed 
upon the bodily eye the peculiarities of dress and pos- 
ture of the illustrious poet. Sensible, however, of the 
delusion, he felt no sentiment save that of wonder at the 
extraordinary accuracy of the resemblance, and stepped 
onwards towards the figure, which resolved itself, as he 
approached, into the various materials of which it was 
composed. These were merely a screen occupied by 
great coats, shawls, plaids, and such other articles as are 
usually found in a country entrance-hall. Sir Walter 
returned to the spot from which he had seen this prod- 
uct of what may be called imagination proper, and tried 
with all his might to recall it by the force of his will, 
but in vain" 

Dr. Tuke, in his " Mind and Body," reports an 
instance in which, by virtue of what he called 
sympathetic emotion and attention, a number of 
persons were made the victims, in spite of their 
eyes, of the same deception, at the same time, and 
from the same cause : — 

" During the conflagration at the Crystal Palace in the 

1 Quoted by W. B. Carpenter, Mental Physiology, p. 207. 



visions. 243 

winter of 1866-1867, when the animals were destroyed 
by the fire, it was supposed that the chimpanzee had 
succeeded in escaping from his cage. Attracted to the 
roof, with this expectation in full force, men saw the 
unhappy animal holding on to it, and writhing in agony 
to get astride one of the iron ribs. It need not be 
said that its struggles were watched by those below 
with breathless suspense, and, as the newspapers in- 
formed us, " with sickening dread." But there was no 
animal whatever there ; and all this feeling was thrown 
away upon a tattered piece of blind, so torn as to re- 
semble, to the eye of fancy, the body, arms, and legs of 
an ape." 1 

It is worthy of notice, that in this case and the 
preceding one, the pseudopia was distinct by day- 
light, showing how closely it may imitate orthopia. 
The imitation may be so exact as to render it 
impossible to distinguish one from the other ex- 
cept by applying the correction of another sense, 
or by comparison with the sight of others. The 
instance just quoted from Dr. Tuke shows that 
the later form of correction will not always de- 
tect the error. As a rule, however, it is not 
difficult to detect pseudopia, whenever an intel- 
ligent and honest effort is made to do so. 

The next case of the series is the celebrated one 
of Nicolai, of Berlin, quoted from his own report. 
It presents several points of great interest, alike 
to the psychologist and physiologist. It is one of 
the rare instances, in which both the eye and the 

1 Mind and Body, Am. ed. 



244 visions. 

ear were deceived simultaneously. Nicolai saw 
human forms projected into space before him, and 
heard them speak. Thus two senses conspired to 
deceive their owner at the same time. Notwith- 
standing this, he was not duped. He recognized 
the error of his eyes and ears, carefully observed 
the pseudopia, and recorded his observations. This 
occurred more than one hundred years ago, and 
indicates a degree of physiological sagacity, phi- 
losophic thought, and absence of superstition, re- 
markable for the age in which he lived. His 
explanation of his visions is far in advance of the 
science, and, it may be added, of the theology of 
the last century. The persistence of the pseud- 
opia and pseudotia, and their evident connection, 
as in the case of Mrs. B., are important physiolog- 
ical facts. They show that the cells of the sen- 
sorium, and of the higher nerve centres, may ac- 
quire a chronic facility for grouping themselves 
into old forms. At the present time, aided by the 
light of modern physiology, his visions admit of a 
satisfactory solution. Without any doubt, Nicolai 
saw and heard what he described, but his seeing 
and hearing were all purely subjective. 

It appears that Nicolai's emotional nature had 
been stirred to its lowest depths, not long before 
he was visited by the visions he describes. As the 
inevitable result of such violent perturbation his 
sensorial and ideational nerve centres were thrown 
into a disturbed, excitable, and sensitive state. As 
a cause or consequence of this, the vaso-motor 



I 



visions. 245 

centre dilated the blood-vessels confided to its 
care, and let in an unusual flow of blood. A 
group of cells was formed, probably in the angu- 
lar gyri, which, influenced by association, emotion, 
habit, and the like, stimulated the automatic ac- 
tion of the visual apparatus to such a degree, that 
it revived other cell-groups, accustomed to appear 
together, till at length the cipher or hieroglyphic 
of his deceased friend was revived. As soon as 
this was accomplished, pseudopia was produced. 
Under the same influences, acting now with in- 
creased power, and to which was added undoubt- 
edly the force of expectant attention, the vision 
was projected into space, and the phantom stood 
forth before the amazed observer, in human shape. 
The auditory centres, according to the experiments 
of Ferrier and others, are anatomically near the 
visual centres. Sound, like light, is a form of 
motion, and it's perception, like the perception 
of light, is subjective, not objective. Wherever 
human forms are seen, human speech is commonly 
heard. The human voice goes with the human 
form. And so in the brain, when visual cell- 
groups which represent human forms are called 
together by orthopia, cell-groups which represent 
human speech are apt to be called together, at the 
same time, in the neighboring auditory centres. 
In the case of Nicolai, habit, association, and ex- 
pectant attention, intensified by emotion, would 
unite, as his vision continued to appear, to act 
energetically on the automatic machinery of hear- 



246 visions. 

ing. At length, their influence was such as to 
set the auditory apparatus in motion. Auditory 
cell-groups were formed, and speech was heard, 
which was inevitably projected out to the figures 
before him. Thus the united automatic action of 
his visual and auditory apparatus completed the 
vision. He saw distinctly, but there was no form. 
He heard, but there was no voice. 

The voice which Nicolai's friend, Mendelssohn, 
heard after the experience of intense emotion, is 
of course to be explained by these physiological 
principles. His auditory cells assumed automati- 
cally the shape corresponding to sound. 

Nicolai's cerebral congestion was apparently re- 
lieved by depletion ; and after the congestion was 
removed his visions ceased. Such was probably 
the order of occurrences. Hyperemia and anae- 
mia of the brain will produce almost any sort of 
functional derangement of the intracranial organs. 

The following case, which, like that of Nicolai, 
illustrates a condition of the brain, probably a 
state of congestion, capable of producing pseudo- 
pia, was kindly communicated to the author by 
Dr. S. Weir Mitchell of Philadelphia, the distin- 
guished physiologist and neurologist. The sub- 
ject of the case was a lady, and the report, given 
in her own language, is in answer to a request for 
it from Dr. Mitchell, who vouches for the unques- 
tioned trustworthiness of the reporter. " After a 

long interval," says Mrs. , " an interval indeed 

of years, I recall the ' visions ' of the illness you 



visions. 247 

refer to as vividly as thpugh but a few hours had 
passed since I was first conscious of them. It 
hardly needs even an effort of memory to see 
again with startling distinctness the endless pro- 
cession of tiny men, who floated across the upper 
part of the wall of my bedroom opposite the bed 
where I lay. They entered the room by the tran- 
som above the door in couples, perfect little men, 
tiny in form, with cheery bright faces ; long fair 
hair hanging about their brows and down their 
shoulders ; they were dressed all alike in vivid 
green short-clothes, with long straight waistcoats 
and deep cuffs ; they came from the time when I 
saw them first until I slept ; and even sometimes 
in sleep I dreamed of them carrying, as they 
always did, each one, a heavy pickaxe, — and a 
coffin, covered with crimson cloth. The coffins 
were borne between two of the tiny men, who 
walked always with their bright little faces turned 
smilingly toward me, but carrying their strange 
burden with exceeding care. Endless as this pro- 
cession seemed, as it entered on one side and 
passed through the end of the wall on the other 
side of the room, as on the stage of a theatre 
figures disappear behind a side scene, I had one 
means, but only one, of arresting their movement 
and staying the numerous little figures in their 
wearying march. When I counted them they 
stood still, and just so long as I continued to count 
them, audibly, which I would do day after day 
until strength and utterance failed me, they re- 



248 visions. 

mained motionless, resuming their movement the 
moment the voice ceased to repeat the numbers. 
They were never affected by conversation, no 
matter how much I might myself be interested in 
it. The drift of the procession swept on and on, 
until I once said, wearied almost to death by the 
persistent pressure of its members, to my phy- 
sician, ' I believe I am going mad.' But one day 
when my illness had increased, and I was worn 
by the long continuance of pain and wearisome 
sleeplessness, I saw a sudden change sweep with 
startling swiftness over the faces and dress and 
burdens of my tiny visitors. Looking steadily at 
me as they always did, the bright cheery faces 
suddenly changed and shrivelled, growing sad and 
worn and colorless, like the faces of old men. 
There was a sudden eagerness and hurry in their 
movements, contrasting strangely with their for- 
mer steadiness, if not absolute repose, as each one 
setting down hurriedly the coffin he held, — - drew 
over his bright green clothes a heavy overcoat 
of dark brown cloth. The coffins, so tiny but 
so distinct, seemed to grow suddenly heavy, and 
changed from vivid red to black. The movement 
of the procession, when at last it was resumed, 
was no longer rhythmical, but jolting and hurried 
and confused. This condition of my little visitors 
lasted through the entire day and night. I hailed 
it as a welcome change, when on the next morn- 
ing I found my little men once more in their orig- 
inal clothing, their ruffled hair all smooth and 



visions. 249 

shining, the little faces cheery and bright, and 
once more the crimson coffins carried by them in 
serious but rapid procession as at first. This 
6 vision ' remained with me long after I left my 
sick-room, returning with any undue exertion or 
fatigue, dying out with intermissions of hours, 
then of days, and at last ceasing altogether." 

The following comments were made by the re- 
porter herself : " 1. I had seen this vision many 
times before I was willing to speak of it to my phy- 
sician. 2. I have said that the figures floated across 
my room. I think this is slightly inaccurate, they 
moved as though on a firm but hilly road, march- 
ing steadily, but following the wall in its rise or 
fall. 3. When I lay with my eyes shut, I still 
saw the procession as through the eyelids. 4. In 
dreaming of them, I saw them as one sees objects 
in ordinary dreams, not with the sense of creating 
the objects but simply enumerating them." 

The next case, that of Mr. A., is as interesting 
and peculiar as that of Nicolai, and formerly 
would have been as inexplicable. Mr. A. saw 
three figures in his chamber at night, and heard 
them sing a number of songs, for about an hour 
and a half, when his servants could not hear or 
see any one. Here again two senses, seeing and 
hearing, were deceived simultaneously. This is 
unusual ; but the marvel is not, when visions oc- 
cur, that this sort of double deception should be 
rare, but that it should not occur oftener. A 
priori, it would seem, if subjective vision created 



250 visions. 

a human form, that subjective hearing should 
endow it with speech. The physiological princi- 
ples, which have been here discussed, afford a 
rational explanation of Mr. A.'s vision also. He 
was an ardent lover of music, and a frequenter of 
concerts and musical entertainments. During a 
long life his brain cells had been often grouped to- 
gether at the sound of music, and at the sight of 
musical performers. The same groups must have 
been formed repeatedly, both in his visual and 
auditory apparatus. For some time before his 
vision, he began to suffer from cerebral difficulties, 
of which one of the prominent symptoms was a 
sense of pressure in the head. There was more 
or less cerebral congestion, and he finally died 
of disease of the brain. All these conditions 
were favorable to functional derangement of his 
nerve centres. It is conceivable that any sort of 
cell-groupings, or cell modifications, might occur 
under these circumstances. The slightest stimulus 
would be sufficient to put in motion the whole, 
or a part of his intracranial machinery. He 
went to bed and fell asleep. While sleeping, the 
notes of a serenade, or the whistling of a boy in 
the street, or the vibration of distant music, or 
even the excitement of a dream, would be enough 
to rouse his automatic cerebral apparatus into 
musical activity. Just as the pricking of a finger 
will rouse that finger's appropriate spinal ganglion 
sufficiently to move the wounded member, auto- 
matically transforming sensation into motion, so a 



VISIONS. 251 

rhythmical vibration, touching Mr. A's. auditory 
ganglia, roused them into activity, transforming 
sensation into ideation. His visual and auditory 
centres had acquired the habit, in musical mat- 
ters, of acting together. Like a pair of old family 
horses, which had trotted in each other's company 
for a lifetime, till each had acquired the habit of 
starting out with the other, without much regard 
to the coachman's call, so Mr. A.'s sight and hear- 
ing were trained to the mutual enjoyment of music. 
One had accompanied the other, for a long life, to 
concerts and musical gatherings, and each expected 
to be employed when the other was. As soon, 
therefore, as some stimulus, however slight, had 
set the chords of his auditory apparatus into au- 
tomatic action, producing subjective sound, his vis- 
ual nerve centres were sympathetically aroused, 
and soon produced subjective vision. It will be 
remembered that he heard sounds, apparently in 
the street, before he saw any one. His auditory 
apparatus functionated first, and it was not until 
after the lapse of a considerable interval, that his 
visual apparatus followed its example. As soon 
as this was done, the two processes went on har- 
moniously together. It should be observed that 
Mr. A.'s vision resembled, in many respects, con- 
certs with which he was familiar. There were 
performers, dressed after the orthodox fashion of 
musical artists, who cleared their throats, and got 
up and sat down in the most approved way, and 
seemed to do all the little nothings, necessary to 



252 visions. 

occupy the interludes. The time occupied was 
about the length of an ordinary concert, and the 
selections were familiar to him. It is not probable 
that any particular concert was rehearsed before 
him, but that bits of one concert followed bits of 
another, — a composition, not a copy, — just as the 
revival of one set of musically stamped cells led 
to the revival of another. The pseudopia was not 
repeated, and in Mr. A.'s condition it was not 
likely to be. The congestion, which yielded blood 
enough to the visual and auditory apparatus to 
enable them to go through these abnormal per- 
formances, increased. Stupor supervened, and Mr. 
A. died. His suspicions were correct that his vis- 
ion, a compound of pseudopia and pseudotia, was 
a warning for him to " step out." During this 
singular occurrence, and after it, he was so little 
moved, emotionally and intellectually, that the vis- 
ion should be classed as simple automatic pseud- 
otia. His visual and auditory mechanism seemed 
to act, as far as possible, independently. Groups 
of old visual and auditory cells moved in and out 
of his field of seeing and hearing, and were tele- 
graphed to his ideational centres, as honest re- 
porters of objective sights and sounds. 

The last case of the series is that of Mr. E., 
which illustrates two forms of pseudotia, — the 
complex automatic form, and the volitional form. 
It possesses an especial value on account of the in- 
tellectual training and large attainments of its sub- 
ject. His childhood's experience indicated a ner- 



visions. 253 

vous organization predisposed to pseudotia. Pre- 
vious to his visions, prolonged and unwise mental 
application had, by inducing excess of nervous ex- 
penditure over repair, of destructive over con- 
structive metamorphosis, weakened his nerve cen- 
tres, rendering their nerve cells and cell contents 
abnormally sensitive and unstable. The power 
of correctly interpreting sensorial impressions was 
impaired, as well as their dependence upon the 
will. They were liable to start into almost any 
sort of abnormal action, upon the slightest stim- 
ulus. This condition was increased by mental 
excitement, great bodily fatigue, and prolonged 
abstinence from food. Thus prepared, his brain 
transformed rays of light, from gas-lamps on the 
street, into bouquets, caused trees to disappear 
before him, and arid plains to take their place. 
A fair-haired youth, the reminiscence of a statue, 
looked at him from underneath a pulpit, and other 
forms of pseudopia amazed him. When the state 
of his nervous system is considered, none of these 
phenomena can be called strange : they were a 
sort of lofty delirium. If he had starved and 
illtreated his brain somewhat more severely, he 
would have had mania, instead of pseudopia, and 
been carried to a hospital instead of reaching his 
college apartment. He was wise in abstaining 
from the exercise of a power, which he found by 
experiment he possessed, — that of producing 
pseudopia by an act of volition. It is probable 
that if he had exercised this power to any great 



254 visions. 

extent, he would have injured his nervous system. 
Goethe might do it, but Goethes are not often 
found. 

In connection with these clinical observations 
it is interesting to know that some persons, appar- 
ently in excellent health, and among them some 
of the greatest minds, have been visited and puz- 
zled by visions. Spinoza, - — one of the world's in- 
tellectual giants, who, insensible to prejudice and 
superstition, never shrunk, in his speculations with 
regard to man and God, from any conclusions to 
which his inexorable logic carried him, — has re- 
corded the fact of being visited by a vision. No one 
would accuse him of being led astray by fancy, 
emotion, or any of the false lights, which mislead 
lesser folk. It appears that " His friend Peter 
Balling had heard in the night certain groanings. 
Afterwards, his child fell ill, gave utterance to 
groanings which Balling recognized as identical 
with those he had before heard in the night, and 
died. Balling wrote to be instructed whether the 
groanings he had heard were c omens.' Spinoza 
replied at some length in a very curious letter. 
He considered that the groanings heard by Balling 
were 'imaginations.' It had happened to him- 
self, he related, that, waking up one morning, the 
images of which his dreams had been composed 
remained obstinately before his eyes, as vivid as 
though they had been real things. Amongst these 
was the image of a ' certain black and filthy 
Ethiopian ' whom he had never before seen. 



visions. 255 

This image in great part disappeared when he 
directed his eyes with attention to a book or other 
object ; but returned with the same vividness as 
it at first possessed, so soon as he allowed his eyes 
to fall anywhere carelessly (sine attentione). The 
image at length disappeared from the head down- 
wards. His description of the phenomenon may 
be interesting to students of the psychology of 
dreams." 1 

It is evident that Spinoza, without comprehend- 
ing the physiology of the phenomenon, justly re- 
garded the Ethiopian as a construction of his own 
brain, and not as a supernatural person, or as pos- 
sessing an objective existence. 

The thought of the poet, overleaping the limits 
of the age into which he is born, by the insight 
or rather the far-sight of genius, sometimes detects 
the secrets of the future with marvellous accuracy. 
In this respect, Shakespeare always has been, and 
always will be, the mystery of the ages. Into 
what science did his eye not penetrate ? Even the 
physiology of visions did not escape him. He has 
illustrated and explained them in a few choice 
words, which excite not less wonder and admira- 
tion by their physiological accuracy, than by the 
singular knowledge they display of a subject, 
about which little or nothing was known two hun- 
dred years ago. It is worth while to turn aside 
a moment from the hard path of our dry discus- 

1 Contemporary Review, reprinted in LitteWs I iving Age, No. 
»7U, April 21, 1877, p. 143. 



256 visions. 

sion, and see how Shakespeare regarded pseudopia. 
He has admirably interpreted it. In the dagger 
scene of Macbeth, the murderer, on his way to the 
king's chamber, is confronted by a vision in the 
air of a bloody dagger. Amazed, he exclaims, — 

" Is this a dagger which I see before me, 
The handle towards my hand ? " 

Doubting the testimony of his eyes, he proceeds, 
justifying by so doing his freedom from supersti- 
tion and fear, to test and correct their evidence by 
his sense of touch : — 

" Come, let me clutch thee. 
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. 
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible 
To feeling as to sight 1 " 

Finding that the testimony of the sense of touch 
confirmed that of sight, he tried another expedient 
by which to prove the vision, and submitted the 
dagger in the air to a careful comparison with his 
own : — 

" I see thee yet, in form as palpable 
As this which now I draw." 

By these various tests Macbeth is convinced 
of the reality of the vision he has encountered. 
Now what is Shakespeare's explanation ? He does 
not make Macbeth deny the vision, or call it fancy, 
or a supernatural visitation, or give any of the the- 
ories of that age. He gives the exact physiologi- 
cal explanation, in language which, for accuracy 
and brevity, cannot be surpassed. He calls it : — 



visions. 257 

" A dagger of the mind : a false creation, 
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain." 

In Macbeth's mental state, intense emotion, 
driving the blood to the brain, would heat and 
oppress the nerve centres, producing "a heat- 
oppressed brain," and by a brain so pressed, sub- 
jective daggers — daggers of the mind — would be 
created and projected into space more readily than 
Goethe could revive a picture by an effort of his 
will. Shakespeare does not stop here. Macbeth 
examines the dagger more closely: — 

" I see thee still. 
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, 
Which was not so before." 

Satisfied that the vision was a creation of his 
own brain, not the messenger of any God or devil, 
and denying its objective, but not its subjective 
existence, he next demanded the cause of this 
singular appearance, and says : — 

" It is the bloody business which informs 
Thus to mine eyes." 

Could any physiologist of to-day, assisted by 
lenses, laboratories, and all the appliances of 
scientific investigation, give any better explana- 
tion ! Whence such knowledge, in the age of 
Queen Elizabeth ? 

VISIONS OF THE INSANE. 

The visions of the insane present an interest- 
ing and instructive field of study, and one allied 

17 



258 visions. 

i 
to the proceeding ; but any attempt to explore 

it would scarcely be in harmony with the design 
of this essay. Moreover, the insane are a pecul- 
iar people, possessing peculiar and extraordinary 
features, and demanding peculiar aptitudes on 
the part of those who study and manage them. 
That insanity is a disease of the brain, and not 
of the soul or mind, independent of the brain, is 
now admitted by all alienists. Such being the 
case, it follows necessarily that the organic changes 
and modifications, which underlie insanity, wheth- 
er discoverable or not by our present means of in- 
vestigation, must modify the development of its 
visions, as well as of its other symptoms. The 
visions of the insane naturally partake of the pe- 
culiarities of their condition, and although the 
physiological principles, which have been here en- 
forced are applicable, mutatis mutandis, to them, 
yet the discussion of these principles, in their 
application to insane visionists, properly belongs 
to those who are charged with their care, and will 
not be examined here. 

VISIONS OF THE DYING. 

The previous study of the visions of childhood, 
of adult life, and of disease, naturally lead to an 
examination of the visions of the dying, — to the 
pseudopia of the death bed. The subject is a 
sacred one, and is indissolubly bound up with om 
holiest and tenderest feelings. We love, and not 
unnaturally, to hope and believe, when the silver 



visions. 259 

cord is loosed which has bound those we love to 
earth, that, at the moment of the loosing, there 
may come a glimpse of heaven, which for an in- 
stant shall clothe the dying features with angelic 
brightness, and perhaps give to the departing one 
a momentary recognition of those who have gone 
before. Such is the conviction of some, the faith 
of many, and the hope of most. The supersti- 
tions and traditions of the past encourage this 
belief, and the private and public history of man- 
kind furnish innumerable examples which appa- 
rently illustrate it. There is scarcely a family 
in the land, some one of whose members has not 
died with a glorified expression on the features, or 
exclamation on the lips, which, to the standers by, 
was a token of a beatific vision. History is full 
of the detailed accounts of the death-beds of great 
men, — warriors, statesmen, martyrs, confessors, 
monarchs, enthusiasts, and others, to whom, at 
the moment of dissolution, visions of congenial 
spirits, or of heavenly glories were vouchsafed. 

It seems unnecessary to examine the foundation 
of such hopes, and almost cruel to destroy them. 
Yet it is better to know the truth than to adopt 
a counterfeit of it, or to nourish a faith built on 
error. Moreover, when the truth which replaces 
a misconception is comprehended, it yields greater 
satisfaction and brighter hopes than the old error. 
Visions of the dying are no exception to this 
statement. It is better to know what they are 
and how they are produced, than to leave them 



260 visions. 

shrouded in mystery. Could this be accomplished, 
much of the terror, with which the act of disso- 
lution is now invested, would disappear, and a 
serene faith, born of knowledge, take its place. 

Dissolution is a natural event in the course of 
life, not life's end. It does not close a career, but 
marks an epoch. Without it the world and life 
would come to an end, for life is born of death. 
Being a natural process, death should not be 
more mysterious, or more painful than other nat- 
ural processes, and the closest observation shows* 
that it is not so. The mystery which shrouds it 
is not greater than that which shrouds birth, or 
thought, or volition ; and yet instinct, fear, hope, 
imagination, superstition, and religion, have all 
conspired to misinterpret its attendant phenom- 
ena, distort its character, and crown it King of 
Terrors, transforming an angel into a devil, a 
blessing into a curse. It is time these false no- 
tions were dissipated, and death seen in its true 
nature. It would still be clothed with mystery 
enough to command the utmost awe and rever- 
ence, and be the harbinger of sorrow enough to 
melt and discipline mankind, and to call for all 
the resources of philosophy and religion. 

One of the most common of these errors is the 
notion, that pain and dying are inseparable com- 
panions. The truth is they rarely go together. 
Occasionally, the act of dissolution is a painful 
one, but this is an exception, and a rare excep- 
tion, to the general rule. The rule is that uncon- 



VISIONS. 261 

sciousness, not pain, attends the final act. To 
the subject of it, death is no more painful than 
birth. Painlessly we come ; whence we know not. 
Painlessly we go ; whither we know not. Nature 
kindly provides an anaesthetic for the body when 
the spirit leaves it. Previous to that moment, and 
in preparation for it, respiration becomes feeble, 
generally slow and short, often accomplished by 
long inspirations and short, sudden expirations, so 
that the blood is steadily less and less oxygenated. 
At the same time, the heart acts with correspond- 
ing debility, producing a slow, feeble, and often 
irregular pulse. As this process goes on, the blood 
is not only driven to the brain with diminished 
force, and in less quantity, but what flows there is 
loaded more and more with carbonic acid gas, a 
powerful anaesthetic, the same as that derived from 
charcoal. Subjected to its influence, the nerve 
centres lose consciousness and sensibility ; appar- 
ent sleep creeps over the system ; then comes stupor, 
and then the end. Thus nature, depriving death of 

pain, 

" Gently slopes the way " 

from this world to that. The process resembles 
the asphyxia of drowning, to which allusion was 
made, when speaking of the revival of past images, 
thoughts, and memories, said to crowd the brain of 
a drowning person. Convulsive twitchings, livid 
features, gurgling in the throat, and similar ghast- 
ly symptoms, which mark the last moment, are 
only exhibitions of unconscious automatic action. 



262 VISIONS. 

The testimony of the dying, so long as they are 
able to give any testimony, is that their suffer- 
ings do not increase as the termination of life 
approaches, but on the contrary grow less. The 
following incident illustrates the truth of this re- 
mark, and, so far as a single instance is of value, 
confirms what has been said as to the painlessness 
of dissolution. A medical friend, whom I at- 
tended professionally in his last illness, was the 
victim of a most painful disease. He was aware 
of its incurable character. Supported by an in- 
telligent faith in God and immortality, he pre- 
pared himself with admirable courage and unfal- 
tering trust for the final change. In consequence 
of continual and severe pain, he was obliged dur- 
ing the last few months of his life to take opium 
daily. He sent for me one night soon after mid- 
night. A brief examination was sufficient to show 
that the end was near. 

"Do these symptoms mean perforation?" asked 
Dr. 

" They do," was the reply. 

" Then I have reached the end of the chapter," 
he quietly remarked, and added, " how long shall 
I probably last? " 

" That you know," I said, " as well as any one : 
perhaps twenty-four, or thirty-six hours." 

Scarcely heeding the reply, he continued, — 

" I am ready ; but promise me this : that I shall 
not suffer pain, if you can prevent it." 

The promise was, of course, given, and I agreed 



visions. 263 

to see him every hour or two as long as he lived. 
This being done, I said to him, " One thing re- 
mains ; how shall I communicate with you when, 
at the very close, the time comes that you cannot 
indicate whether you suffer or not ? " 

After a little talk the following signals were 
agreed upon : He was to indicate a negative an- 
swer, or No, by raising the forefinger ; and an af- 
firmative answer, or Yes, by raising the forefinger 
and the one next to it also. One finger was No ; 
two fingers Yes. Having arranged this matter, 
he took rather more than his habitual dose of 
opium, and was soon comparatively quiet. The 
pain did not return. For twelve or fifteen hours 
he appeared much as usual ; conversed with his 
family and friends, and was cheerful and serene. 
Then, as nature's anaesthetic began to act, he be- 
came dull and heavy. In answer to repeated 
inquiries as to pain, he constantly replied in the 
negative. At length, he answered less readily. 
For an hour or so before death he answered only 
by the signal of his fingers which had been 
agreed upon, and by that signal he replied quickly 
and intelligently. Fifteen minutes before disso- 
lution, I asked him, " Do you suffer pain ? " He 
instantly made the negative signal by raising his 
forefinger. After this he made no sign, but slept 
peacefully to the end. 

Another erroneous notion is that a momentary 
glow on the countenance, opening and apparent 
fixing of the eyes upon some object, or person, or 



264 visions. 

upon vacancy, a certain earnestness of expression, 
and similar signs, betoken intelligence. All such 
phenomena as these are automatic. They are 
analogous to those produced by etherization. An 
etherized person loses volition, consciousness, and 
sensibility, but is not deprived of the functions of 
organic life. And so a person asphyxiated by 
natural death loses volition, consciousness, and in- 
telligence, before automatic action and the func- 
tions of involuntary life depart. The glowing 
cheek, and fixed or rolling eye, are indications of 
mechanical action after the higher centres have 
ceased to functionate. 

Deprived of volition and intelligence, and given 
over, for a brief period, to automatic power, it is 
to be expected that the intracranial apparatus, 
and especially the sensory portion of it, would oc- 
casionally exhibit singular phenomena. The won- 
der is, not that they do so at all, but that they do 
not do so oftener. A steam-engine, shattered by 
a blow and deserted by its engineer, will for a 
few seconds make a singular exhibition of power, 
leaping obstacles, running up ascents, plunging 
into rivers, and illustrating, in a variety of ways, 
the action of blind force. So the ganglia of the 
brain, just before dissolution, sometimes show 
their automatic power by phenomena, which are 
unusual, and often regarded as supernatural. 
This is particularly true of the visual apparatus. 
Not only is the brain released, at this time, from 
its usual controlling force, and oppressed by an 



visions. 265 

anaesthetic, but its cells, cell-contents, nerve fibres, 
and all its tissues must be in a peculiar organic 
condition, the direct or indirect result of disease. 
Old sensitized plates (cells) of memory, emotion, 
thought, sight, and the like, the accumulated 
stores of a lifetime, must partake of the general 
commotion, and oftentimes be brought into condi- 
tions which permit their being easily called into 
functional activity. Their dynamic state may be 
temporarily exalted. Should a bright ray of light, 
falling from some object in the chamber, on the 
retina of a dying person, excite the visual appa- 
ratus, and cells, the hieroglyphic of a departed 
child, husband, lover, or friend, be brought into 
the field of subjective sight, the beloved one 
would be reproduced, and at once projected into 
space. Intense emotion, engendered by such a 
sight, would for an instant break through the stu- 
pefying power of nature's anaesthetic, as the sur- 
geon's knife sometimes momentarily breaks the 
spell of ether, and the dying individual springing, 
with eyes intent, features transfigured, and arms 
outstretched, toward the vision, would naturally 
pronounce the long remembered name, and then 
fall back and die. Such scenes have occurred. 
Few could witness them without an overwhelm- 
ing sense of awe, oppressed 

" With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls." 

at beholding for a moment, the apparent lifting of 
the veil and the glory within. To the dying, 



266 visions. 

such a vision would not be false. It would not 
be imagination. It would be real to him. The 
well-known features would be there, and yet they 
would be a creation, or reproduction of a dissolv- 
ing brain, and not a messenger from the opened 
heavens. The vision would be a physiological 
effect, not a supernatural intervention. 

The following incident illustrates the power of 
the brain to revive past memories at the moment 
of dissolution : — ■ 

" I was watching one night beside a poor man dying 
of consumption ; his case was hopeless, but there was 
no appearance of the end being very near ; he was in 
full possession of his senses, able to talk with a strong 
voice, and not in the least drowsy. He had slept through 
the day and was so wakeful that I had been conversing 
with him on ordinary subjects to while away the long 
hours. Suddenly, while we were thus talking quietly 
together, he became silent, and fixed his eyes on one 
particular spot in the room, which was entirely vacant, 
even of furniture ; at the same time a look of the great- 
est delight changed the whole expression of his face, 
and after a moment of what seemed to be intense scru- 
tiny of some object invisible to me, he said to me in a 
joyous tone, ' There is Jim.' Jim was a little son whom 
he had lost the year before, and whom I had known 
well, but the dying man had a son still living, named 
John, for whom we had sent, and I concluded it was of 
John he was speaking, and that he thought he heard 
him arriving ; so I answered, — - * No. John has not 
been able to come.' The man turned to me impatiently 
and said, ' I do not mean John ; I know he is not here ; 



VISIONS. 267 

it is Jim, my little lame Jim ; surely you remember 
him ? ' ' Yes/ I said, ' I remember dear little Jim, who 
died last year, quite well.' ' Don't you see him there ? 
There he is/ said the man, pointing to the vacant space 
on which his eyes were fixed ; and when I did not an- 
swer, he repeated almost fretfully, l Don't you see him 
standing- there ? ' I answered that I could not see him, 
though I felt perfectly convinced that something was 
visible to the sick man, which I could not perceive. 
When I gave him this answer he seemed quite amazed, 
and turned round to look at me with a glance almost of 
indignation. As his eyes met mine, I saw that a film 
seemed to pass over them, the light of intelligence died 
away, he gave a gentle sigh, and expired. He did not 
live five minutes from the time he first said, ' There is 
Jim/ although there had been no sign of approach! l.g 
death previous to that moment." 1 

The similarity of this vision to some of those 
forming the basis of our present investigation is 
obvious. The appearance of this for a single in- 
stant only, and of those for a considerable period, 
constitute no essential difference between them. 
All saw a human form, distinctly, when others 
could not do so. A similar cerebral condition, 
not necessarily the same condition, must have ex- 
isted in all of them, probably a condition char- 
acterized by more or less hyperemia. If there 
had been anything supernatural about this case, — 
as the reporter of it is inclined to believe, — there 
should be a supernatural element in the others 

1 New Quarterly Review, reprinted in LittelVs Living Age, 
August 11,1877 (" The Riddle of Death"). 



268 visions. 

also. But if physiology can give an adequate and 
rational explanation of them, the same explana- 
tion should be applied to this. Wherever natural 
forces supply a sufficient cause, it is unnecessary 
and unphilosophical to seek for any other. 

It is stated in this case that the patient was not 
drowsy before the appearance of his vision, or be- 
fore his death. He died suddenly, so that there 
was no opportunity or necessity for nature to pro- 
vide an anaesthetic. This does not militate against 
the fact that dissolution is ordinarily painless, or 
against nature's method of securing euthanasia. 
When death occurs suddenly from disease of the 
heart or brain, or from nervous exhaustion or 
other cause, it must obviously be painless, and 
the combined action of the heart and lungs, by 
which nature provides a painless departure in the 
slower and more common ways of dying, would 
be unnecessary. It happens not infrequently that 
a patient, exhausted by long illness, dies suddenly 
from exhaustion, and if so, without pain. 

It is conceivable that, under the conditions which 
have been described, almost any sort of pseudopia 
might occur. Sometimes one of the nerve cen- 
tres is affected, sometimes another, and sometimes 
all of them are. Perhaps those most commonly 
called into activity at the time of dissolution are 
the motor centres, the irritation or excitement of 
which is apt to produce general or partial convul- 
sions. These are always expected. They are 
the recognized attendants of the death-bed, re- 



visions. 269 

garded by the ignorant as an effort of the spirit 
to free itself from its prison, and christened the 
death struggle. They are strictly automatic and 
painless, and physiologically are analogous to vis- 
ions. At that moment of cerebral cell confusion 
and disintegration, a stimulus, impinging on a 
motor centre, excites convulsions ; on a visual cen- 
tre, visions ; on an auditory centre, sounds, and so 
on. Automatism rules for a brief period before 
death closes the scene. 

This cerebral commotion, and the pseudopia 
which now and then accompanies it, belong to 
the moment of dissolution. The condition of the 
cerebral tissues, preceding the final breaking up 
by some hours or days, is, of course, somewhat 
different from their condition at that time. Stu- 
por and anaesthesia, so characteristic of the final 
stage in most cases, do not appear till an indi- 
vidual is moribund. Antecedent to that stage, 
the sufferer may be heavy, oppressed, and dull, 
wretched and worn out by the discomforts and 
agony of disease, but still retain an unclouded in- 
tellect, unfaltering courage, and serene faith. In 
this state, when disease, if acute, has been mak- 
ing rapid inroads upon the system ; if chronic, has 
been slowly undermining it, the nerve centres are, 
of course, more or less involved. Waste predom- 
inates over repair. Weakness characterizes the 
nervous system as well as the rest of the organiza- 
tion. All the nerves are unnaturally sensitive, or 
irritable, even when there is apparent torpidity. 



270 visions. 

The eye is easily disturbed by light, and the ear 
by sounds. The presence of near friends is pleas- 
ant, of half friends offensive. The gentle pres- 
sure of a loving hand is more grateful than speech ; 
light friction of the skin than gossip ; quiet and 
solitude than excitement and company. All this 
betrays irritability of the higher nerve centres, 
and is a state in which they are as sensitive to in- 
ternal or subjective impressions as to objective 
ones. The memories of childhood, of youthful 
friends and early scenes, are revived with extra- 
ordinary vividness. Tears come readily. Emo- 
tions of all sorts are intensified. Cells and cell- 
groups, which have been associated by the habits 
and occupations of a life, perhaps of a long life, 
are easily revived and stimulated into reflex ac- 
tivity through the brain, and excite its sensory, 
motor, and ideo-motor centres. These are pre- 
cisely the conditions which favor the production 
of subjective pseudopia, and particularly of idea- 
tional pictures or visions. Thus, Napoleon, en- 
feebled by sickness, not moribund, but soon to be 
so, recalling, perhaps subjectively looking upon, 
scenes of past slaughter and glory, startled his 
attendant with the cry, "Tete d? armee." Thus, 
victims of the Inquisition, starved and tortured 
into weakness and disease, were often cheered and 
consoled, on the eve of their auto-da-fe, by vis- 
ions of their sainted predecessors beckoning them 
to follow. Thus, hospital patients, strangers, poor 
and friendless, have amazed their companions by 



VISIONS. 271 

stories of glorified visitors, bringing hopes of re- 
lease which were soon verified. Tennyson's " May 
Queen" illustrated one of these states of quiet 
thanatopsis, when shortly before her departure, 
she heard voices of angels calling her to join 
them. Pages, or rather volumes, could be filled 
with histories of visions of this sort, if the records 
and traditions of the past, and especially if the 
biographies of devout Catholics, were searched 
for them. Saints, who have mortified the flesh 
till their anaemic brains, rapidly disintegrating 
and highly sensitive, are brought to the eve of 
dissolution, present the most favorable conditions 
for the production of subjective, ante-mortem 
pseudopia, With volition at its minimum, reflex 
activity at its maximum, their nerve-cells wasted 
and dried into tinder, is it marvellous that their 
brains should sometimes burn with unwonted 
light ? 

These and similar manifestations are of peculiar 
interest to the physiologist, as illustrations of au- 
tomatic cerebral activity, and to the psychologist, 
as illustrations of the power of the brain to pro- 
duce results, which have hitherto been regarded 
as purely mental. They exhibit not only the 
power of the sensory and motor apparatus, but 
indicate the effects which the sensori-motor and 
ideo-motor apparatus are capable of producing, 
when, deprived of a coordinating centre, they act 
independently. Emotions, subjective sensations, 
pictorial representations, ideational pictures, ideas, 



272 visions. 

hieroglyphics of the past, and distortions of the 
present, flow, a confused medley, through the sen- 
sorium ; flame up there for a moment, with a 
strange, unearthly light, to disappear, so far as 
the body is concerned, forever. If this be so, — and 
what physiologist can doubt it, — the stories of 
heaven opening over death-beds, upon which an- 
gels ascend and descend, and of friends gone be- 
fore, waiting to welcome the new comer, must be 
referred, not to supernatural agencies, or to the 
imagination, but simply to the automatic action 
of the brains of the dying. They are, however 
much our hopes may wish they were not, the last 
flickering of life's taper; the occasional flashing 
of cerebral fires, burning the brain's accumulated 
stores of experience. 

Probably all such visions as these are automatic. 
But yet, who, believing in God and personal im- 
mortality, as the writer rejoices in doing, will dare 
to say absolutely all? Will dare to assert there 
is no possible exception? If life is continuous, 
heaven beyond, and death the portal, is it philo- 
sophical to affirm that no one entering that portal 
has ever caught a glimpse, or can ever catch a 
glimpse, before he is utterly freed from the flesh, of 
the glory beyond ? May not the golden bowl, just 
as it is shattered, " be touched by rays from a light 
that is above it," and flash with a glory no lan- 
guage can describe ? The pure materialist, sad dis- 
ciple of nihilism, may dispute this, but no theist or 
Christian will be bold enough to deny it. Frances 



visions. 273 

Power Cobbe, in a recent article from which the 
last case was quoted, has given utterance to the 
above thought. " Assuming," she says, " that we 
are individually already convinced that the quasi- 
universal creed of the human race is not erroneous, 
and that the ' soul of a man never dies ' we may 
not unreasonably turn to the solemn scene of dis- 
solution, and ask, Whether there do not some- 
times occur, under one or two perhaps of its hun- 
dred forms, some incidents which point in the 
direction of the great Fact, which we believe to be 
actually in process of realization ? According to 
our common conviction, there is a moment of time, 
when the man whom we have known in his garb 
of flesh, casts it aside, actually, so to speak, before 
our eyes, and ' this mortal puts on immortality.' 
.... Of course, it is quite possible that the nat- 
ural law of death may be that the departed al- 
ways sink into a state of unconsciousness, and 
rather dip beneath a Lethe than leap a Rubicon. 
It is likewise possible that the faculties of a dis- 
embodied soul, whatever they may be, may need 
time and use, like those of an infant, before they 
can be practically employed. But there is also 
at least a possibility that consciousness is not al- 
ways lost, but is continuous through the passage 
from one life to another, and that it expands, 
rather than closes, at the moment when the bonds 
of the flesh are broken, and the man enters into 
possession of his higher powers and vaster facul- 
ties, symbolled by the beautiful old emblem of 

18 



274 visions. 

Psyche's emancipated butterfly quitting the shell 
of the chrysalis. In this latter case there is a 
certain prima facie presumption that close obser- 
vation ought to permit us occasionally to obtain 
some brief glimpse, some glance, though but of 
lightning swiftness and evanescence, revealing 
partially this transcendent change." l 

With the hope of throwing some light upon 
this interesting question, competent persons were 
asked by the authoress of the " Riddle of Death," if 
they had ever observed any phenomena, at the 
moment of dissolution, indicating that the Ego 
— mind or soul — was conscious of a new phase 
of existence before leaving this. Nine observa- 
tions are reported, the character of which was be- 
lieved to justify such a notion. Judged by the 
principles forming the basis of our present study 
of visions, it is unnecessary to go beyond the 
physiological action of the brain for a rational and 
satisfactory explanation of most of them. Two or 
three of the cases, however, present phenomena, 
of which, to say the least, it is difficult to give an 
adequate physiological solution. The following 
incident, the subject of which was an intelligent 
boy about fourteen years of age, dying of u de- 
cline " illustrates this remark : — 

" He was a refined, highly educated child, who through- 
out his long illness had looked forward with much hope 
and longing to the unknown life to which he believed 

1 The Riddle of Death, by Frances Power Cobbe. LitteWs 
Living Age and New Quarterly Review. 



visions. 275 

he was hastening. On a bright summer morning it be- 
came evident that he had reached his last hour. He 
lost the power of speech, chiefly from weakness, but he 
was perfectly sensible, and made his wishes known to 
us by his intelligent looks. He was sitting propped up in 
bed, and had been looking rather sadly at the bright 
sunshine playing on the trees outside his open window 
for some time. He had turned away from this scene, 
however, and was facing the end of the room, where 
there was nothing whatever but a closed door, when all 
in a moment the whole expression of his face changed 
to one of the most wondering rapture, which made his 
half-closed eyes open to their utmost extent, while his 
lips parted with a smile of perfect ecstasy ; it was im- 
possible to doubt that some glorious sight was visible to 
him, and from the movement of his eyes it was plain 
that it was not one but many objects on which he gazed, 
for his look passed slowly from end to end of what 
seemed to be vacant wall before him, going back and 
forward with ever-increasing delight manifested in his 
whole aspect. His mother then asked him if what he 
saw was some wonderful sight beyond the confines of 
this world, to give her a token that it was so by pressing 
her hand. He at once took her hand, and pressed it 
meaningly, giving thereby an intelligent affirmative to 
her question, though unable to speak. As he did so a 
change passed over his face, his eyes closed, and in a 
few minutes he was gone." x 

Here is another instance in which it is difficult 
to trace the action of automatism. An elderly 
man was dying of a painful disease, which, how- 
ever, did not obscure his mental faculties. Al- 
1 The Riddle of Death. 



276 visions. 

though it was known to be incurable, he had 
been told that he might lhe some months, when 
somewhat suddenly the summons came on a dark 
January morning. It had been seen in the course 
of the night that he was sinking, but for some 
time he had been perfectly silent and motionless, 
apparently in a state of stupor; his eyes closed 
and his breathing scarcely perceptible. As the 
tardy dawn of the winter morning revealed the 
rigid features of the countenance from which life 
and intelligence seemed to have quite departed, 
those who watched him felt uncertain whether he 
still lived ; but suddenly, while they bent over him 
to ascertain the truth, he opened his eyes wide, and 
gazed eagerly upward with such an unmistakable 
expression of wonder and joy, that a thrill of awe 
passed through all who witnessed it. His whole 
face grew bright with a strange gladness, while 
the eloquent eyes seemed literally to shine as if 
reflecting some light on which they gazed ; he re- 
mained in this attitude of delighted surprise for 
some minutes, then in a moment the eyelids fell, 
the head drooped forward, and with one long- 
breath the spirit departed. 1 

From the observation of death beds for more 
than a quarter of a century, during which period 
I have often witnessed the dissolution of persons 
of all ages and conditions, I can recall only a sin- 
gle instance of which the phenomena admitted 
the possibility of any other interpretation than a 

i The Riddle of Death. 



visions. 277 

physiological one. It was night. The departing 
one was a lady of middle age. Her death, though 
momentarily expected from cardiac disease, was 
not announced or preceded by the usual anaes- 
thesia of the dying. During the night, when 
awake, her mental action was perfect. She con- 
versed, a few minutes before dying, as pleasantly 
and intelligently as ever. There was no stupor, 
delirium, strangeness * or moribund symptom indi- 
cating cerebral disturbance. Her cardiac symptoms 
alone foreshadowed the great change. After say- 
ing a few words, she turned her head upon her 
pillow as if to sleep, then unexpectedly turning it 
back, a glow, brilliant and beautiful exceedingly, 
came into her features ; her eyes, opening, sparkled 
with singular vivacity ; at the same moment, with 
a tone of emphatic surprise and delight, she pro- 
nounced the name of the earthly being nearest 
and dearest to her ; and then, dropping her head 
upon her pillow, as unexpectedly as she had looked 
up, her spirit departed to God who gave it. The 
conviction, forced upon my mind, that something 
departed from her body, at that instant rupturing 
the bonds of flesh, was stronger than language 
can express. 

There is an important difference, in one respect, 
between the last three cases and the previous ones. 
In the previous cases a definite object, like a hu- 
man face, or form, was seen ; sometimes more than 
one individual appeared. Moreover, those who 
made themselves visible were departed friends, 



278 visions. 

and bore familiar faces. ,Their hieroglyphics had 
been laid away in the cerebral cells of the dying 
individual, and were consequently capable of be- 
ing revived with greater or less fidelity. In the 
last three cases, no definite object, form, or face, 
was apparently seen. The departing person 
seemed to gaze with intense interest and delight, 
and a transfigured countenance, upon something, 
whether some strange beauty, as of a radiant 
glory, or an angelic group, or sainted friends, no 
one present could tell, and there was no revealing 
sign. Silence, surprise, wonder, and rapt gazing 
would be natural to any one, even at the moment 
of dying, upon whose view such a scene should 
burst. There would be no revival of brain-cells, 
stamped with earthly memories and scenes, but 
something seen, of which the brain had received 
no antecedent impression, and of which the Ego 
had formed no conception. 

It is in some such direction as this, if in any, 
the departing spirit would indicate, just as the 
old is dropping off, that the new is seen. En- 
tranced by a glimpse of what eye hath not seen, 
nor ear heard, and of which man has formed no 
conception, his gaze would be riveted upon a glory, 
invisible to his earthly companions. His features 
would be transfigured, and those around would be 
amazed, perhaps appalled at the sight, as some 
fishermen were, two thousand years ago, upon a 
mountain in Galilee by the transcendent glory of 
- familiar face. In Correggio's "Notte," the light 



visions. 279 

which illuminates the group around the infant 
Jesus proceeds from the face of the Christ-child, 
who, reposing on his mother's lap, unconsciously 
baptizes all with heavenly beauty. Such should, 
and such must be, the ineffable expression of trans- 
figured humanity upon the features of whoever 
gets a sight of heaven, before he has left the 
earth. If ever a scene like this occurs, who 
will dare say that the explanation of it may not 
come from a height inaccessible to our imperfect 
physiology ? 

VISIONS OF SLEEP. 

Visions and dreams are near relatives. They 
are produced by similar causes, depend on similar 
conditions, and are subject to similar laws. Both 
inhabit the intracranial territory, manifest them- 
selves by means of the ganglionic machinery of 
the higher nerve-centres, and not infrequently 
delude those they visit into the notion, that their 
subjective movements are objective realities. Both 
claim an antiquity equal to that of the human 
race, and continue at the present day, with greater 
or less success, to excite superstition, ridicule, or 
fear, and to mock or strengthen the faith of man- 
kind. Hence, a study of visions naturally and 
almost necessarily leads to a study of dreams, the 
visions of sleep. These are a part of those ; the 
latter are included in the former. 

There are two important differences, however, 
between pseudopia and dreams, which should be 



280 visions. 

clearly recognized. One is that the mechanism of 
pseudopia is limited to that of the visual apparatus. 
Vision, as its name implies, belongs to seeing, and 
is concerned with other functions only so far as 
it may be influenced by them. The mechanism 
of dreams, on the contrary, embraces ail the 
mechanism of sensation and thought. All the 
higher centres contribute to the evolution, and 
enhance the complexity of dreams. Pseudopia 
cheats its victims by the employment of a special 
apparatus in the abnormal production of false 
pictorial representations. Dreams aim at the 
same end, and sometimes attain it by utilizing 
any part of the nervous machinery of which they 
can get hold. Pseudopia is limited to a com- 
paratively small section of the cerebral system. 
Dreams occupy the whole. A second distinction 
between dreams and pseudopia is that the occur- 
rence of dreams is confined to the period of sleep, 
while pseudopia acknowledges no such limitation. 
A vision may appear and excite the wonder, dis- 
turb the thoughts, and perplex the judgment at 
midday as well as at midnight. A dream creeps 
stealthily into the brain, displaying its operations 
when reason and volition are off their guard, and 
sleep has shorn judgment of its power. 

Sleep, then, is a fundamental condition of dream- 
ing. Revery and abstraction may occupy our wak- 
ing hours and lead to self forgetfulness, but be- 
tween them and dreams there is a great gulf, 
which must be passed before the land of dreams 



VISIONS. 281 

is reached. If it were possible to comprehend 
the phenomena of sleep, there would be less diffi- 
culty in comprehending those of dreaming. As 
it is dreams admit of a more satisfactory explana- 
tion than sleep. What a mystery sleep is ! So 
like life and so like death, that it is difficult to 
say which of the two it resembles most. Under 
its influence the system exhibits the repose, un- 
consciousness, and torpor of death, but retains the 
color, pulse, and breath of life. If we should wit- 
ness sleep for the first time to-day, we should 
look upon the subject of its spell with wonder and 
anxiety, if not with terror, and feel unspeakable 
relief as we saw movement, intelligence, and speech 
return. Now, accustomed to its mystery, as we 
are to that of life, we commit ourselves and our 
dear ones to its care with thankfulness, not with 
fear, assured that it will carry us and them, each 
separately but safely, through the dark and silent 
valley of unconsciousness to renewed life. In this 
it is like death, which leads us, each separately 
and alone, through a passage of equal, perhaps 
not of greater, darkness and unconsciousness to 
renewed existence. Socrates was right in saying 
that whoever does not fear sleep should not fear 
death. 

The mechanism of sleep is not perfectly made 
out, but the observations of Mr. A. Durham of 
England, and of Dr. W. A. Hammond of New 
York, on the brain, and those of Dr. J. Hughlings 
Jackson on the retina, show that during sleep the 



282 visions. 

activity of the circulation of the blood through 
a part of the brain is considerably diminished. 
The physiological action of a continued dose of 
the bromide of potash, which simultaneously pro- 
duces sleep and diminished activity of the cerebral 
blood circulation, points in the same direction. 
So does the following case : — 

" M. Perquin observed in the hospital of Montpellier, 
in 1821, a case which throws considerable light upon the 
actual condition of the brain in profound sleep, and in 
that in which dreams occur. A female, aged 26, had 
lost a portion of her scalp, skull bone, and dura mater, 
under an attack of malignant disease, by means of which 
a portion of the brain was exposed in such a manner as 
admitted of inspection. When this patient was in a 
dreamless state, or in profound sleep, her brain was 
motionless, and lay within the cranium. When the 
sleep was imperfect, and the mind was agitated by 
dreams, her brain moved and protruded from the 
cranium, forming a cerebral hernia. This protrusion 
was still greater whenever the dreams, as reported by 
herself, were most active, and when she was perfectly 
awake, especially if engaged in active or sprightly con- 
versation, it attained its fullest development, nor did 
this protrusion occur in jerks, alternating with recessions, 
as if caused by arterial blood, but remained permanent 
while the conversation continued." * 

On the other hand section of the sympathetic 

nerve in dogs produces congestion of the brain, and 

does not interfere with sleep. From these various 

observations it may be inferred with reasonable 

1 New Am. Cyclopedia, art. "Dreams." 



visions. 283 

certainty that sleep, and a diminished supply of 
blood to a part of the brain, and congestion of 
another part, bear an important and definite re- 
lation to each other, but it does not appear from 
them which is cause and which effect. Sleep 
may be the cause of a retarded cerebral circulation, 
though the reverse is probably the case ; a con- 
clusion, strengthened by Dr. A. Fleming's experi- 
ments on compression of the carotid arteries in the 
neck. Fortunately it is not necessary to decide 
this question, in order to arrive at a rational ex- 
planation of dreams. It is important, however, 
for such a purpose to know that derangement of 
the cerebral circulation is a constant accompani- 
ment or co-efficient of sleep. Dreams are mani- 
fested only by a sleeping brain, and such a brain 
carries less blood in one part and more in another 
than a waking one. 

During sleep the process of nutrition is at its 
maximum. This is especially true of the nutri- 
tion of the nervous system. Its ganglionic centres, 
having supplied force for the day's labor, take 
advantage of the repose of sleep to repair their 
cells, and obtain fresh supplies of the elements of 
force. Then the brain is busy, discharging its 
decomposed products, the dSbris of effort, thought, 
and volition, into the blood, and selecting from 
the constituents of the same fluid the elements of 
its own power. There is probably some occult 
connection between this process, and sleep, and 
a diminished blood supply. It would be strange 



284 visions. 

if the contemporaneous action of these three 
factors were fortuitous. Wundt has put forth the 
ingenious hypothesis that the automatic cerebral 
excitations of sleep are due to a retardation of the 
intracranial circulation, and consequent retention 
in the blood of the products of decomposition. 
He says : - — 

" It is in the highest degree probable that the auto- 
matic excitement of sleep has its origin in the innervat- 
ing centres of the medulla oblongata. Retardation of 
respiration is a frequent accompaniment of sleep. The 
tendency of the blood, thereby induced, to produce 
dyspnoea probably acts as an irritant upon the vaso- 
motor nerve centres and so as to cause retardation of the 
circulation of blood within the cranium, and consequent 
irritation of the central parts, and especially of the 
cortex. This notion is strengthened by the fact that 
other forms of automatic irritation, like respiratory con- 
vulsions and epileptic spasms, are most easily excited 
during sleep." 1 

If we could look in upon the brain during sleep, 
and watch the behavior of its minute con- 
stituents, millions upon millions of cells and cell 
contents, there would be presented to our view 
not a scene of repose and inactivity, but one of 
incessant work. There would be no congestion 
or pressure of blood through the capillaries, 
whereby the manifestation of volition, intellection, 
ideation, and similar nerve action is rendered pos- 
sible. The sort of tissue change, which the day 

1 Physiologische Psychologies p. 189. 



visions. 285 

had witnessed, would be replaced by the labor of 
repair, and the genesis of cells, granules, protoplas- 
mic stuff, and all the raw material of cerebration. 
Everywhere there would be displayed activity, in 
preparation for the next day's labor. The work- 
man and the tools would be microscopic, almost 
infinitesimal, it is true, but still they would be 
there and at work, and they would be all autom- 
ata. In health all this work is performed in si- 
lence. We are utterly unconscious of it. Few, 
however, enjoy such perfect health, and sleep so 
normal and profound as to get no hint of the 
cerebral action which sleep covers ; and when any 
such hints are received they are apt to become the 
origin of dreams. What profusion of stuff for 
dreams is here ! 

Another characteristic condition of the brain 
during sleep, and one of great importance in its 
relations to dreams, is the predominance of auto- 
matic over volitional action. In this respect, the 
resemblance of sleep to death again appears. As 
the system approaches dissolution it is surren- 
dered, more or less unreservedly, to automatic 
power, and in the act of dying, the surrender is 
complete. In sleep a similar condition prevails, 
but the surrender is incomplete, and' the power of 
volition, never entirely gone, can always be re- 
called. The difference is one of degree. In sleep 
not only is the superintendence of volition practi- 
cally removed, but the light of reason is substan- 
tially extinguished, the guidance of judgment ab- 



286 visions. 

sent, and the moral sense obliterated. All the 
highest faculties, those in most intimate relations 
with the Ego, and which some suppose to consti- 
tute the Ego, are in temporary abeyance, and the 
work of the brain is carried on automatically. 
At the same time the sensory and reflex centres 
retain their organic consciousness and activity un- 
diminished. If a finger is pricked, the sensation is 
felt, converted into motion, and the finger with- 
drawn, without awaking the sleeper. The imper- 
fect digestion of a cold potato, or a Welsh rabbit, 
may produce the extremity of uneasiness, almost 
convulsive thrashing of the limbs, and even screams 
without opening the eyelids. The same holds 
true of innumerable other sensations, which are 
transformed into motion during sleep. Not only 
is this the case, but the delicacy and extent of 
reflex action sometimes seems to be increased by 
sleep. Of this the firm and courageous step of a 
somnambulist along the edge of precipices, or on 
exposed and dizzy heights, is an example. Emo- 
tion is often increased in intensity by sleep, and 
a sleeper will scream with fear at trifles which he 
would scarcely notice when awake. Any friction 
of the cerebral machinery is felt and extravagantly 
magnified. When awake, ideas, or groups of ideas, 
produced by impressions on sensory or ideational 
cells, are recognized as subjective ; when asleep, 
reason and judgment being absent, the same im- 
pression on the same cells, is apt to be regarded 
as objective. When the Greek mask of tragedy 



visions. 287 

appeared on the ceiling of my chamber, after 
opium, I was awake and instantly recognized its 
subjective character. In sleep its subjective na- 
ture would not have been recognized, and it would 
have been a dream. 

Such are some of the conditions and character- 
istics of sleep, a physical state, which affords an 
opportunity for a display of the phenomena of 
dreams, without which dreams would be impos- 
sible, and which deserves a careful study by all 
who are interested in them. It is doubtful if in 
normal sleep dreams ever occur, notwithstanding 
the opinion of many eminent observers to the con- 
trary. The characteristics of sleep, favorable to 
dreams, which have been mentioned, are first, and 
most important, the predominance in the cerebral 
machinery of automatic over volitional control ; 
second, the process of repair, by which cell activ- 
ity is produced and kept up ; third, a tendency 
to exaggerate sensations, emotions, and ideas ; and 
fourth, the inactivity of reason and judgment, 
supplemented by the activity of unreason and 
misrule. 

This brief survey of the conditions of sleep 
forms a natural introduction to an examination of 
the visions of sleep. Most of the current defini- 
tions of dreams have been framed by psycholo- 
gists, from a psychological standpoint, and are of 
course of very little value to a physiologist, or to 
any one* else. They are chiefly interesting as cu- 
rious illustrations of the different notions enter- 



288 visions. 

tained by philosophers and metaphysicians, with 
regard to them, and of the loose ideas floating 
on the public mind concerning the whole subject. 
Even Sir William Hamilton's definition is inac- 
curate and obscure. Approached from the physi- 
ological side, it is less difficult than from any 
other to get a distinct view of dreams, and conse- 
quently less difficult from that standpoint to form 
a tolerably accurate notion of their character. 
Examined from that point, dreams appear to be 
the automatic and generally irregular revival of 
impressions made upon antecedently sensitized 
cerebral cell-groups, or elements, whether sensory, 
emotional, motor, ideational, or all combined, and 
the ideation produced by such a reproduction. 
The cell-groups, thus revived, may be those 
stamped by the previous day's experience, or 
those stamped by the experience of years long 
gone by, or a medley of recent and old impres- 
sions, attracted to each other by associations which 
admit of no explanation. 

In ancient times dreams were supposed to be 
prophetic. Such was the character of Joseph's 
dream of sheaves ; Pharaoh's dream of fat and 
lean kine ; Calpurnia's dream of the Ides of 
March, which, ridiculed by Ca3sar, was supposed 
to be confirmed by the dagger of Brutus ; and 
numberless other dreams, of which history and 
tradition have preserved the record. Tertullian 
regarded dreams as messages, sometimes from God 
and sometimes from the devil. A belief in the 



visions. 289 

prophetic or ominous character of dreams has not 
yet disappeared. How many persons are there, 
who, visited on Monday night by a vivid and de- 
tailed dream of the death by drowning of a son, 
on the next day, Tuesday, as one of a projected 
sailing party, would not use every effort to keep 
him away from the excursion, or, if this were im- 
possible, feel greatly relieved at his safe return ? 
As with the visions of the dying, so with the vis- 
ions of sleep, the human mind is strongly tempted 
to believe that dreams open the door for super- 
natural communications. 

The characteristics of dreams curiously corre- 
spond to the conditions of sleep. They fit into, 
or, to use a carpenter' s phrase, dovetail into each 
other. The opportunities afforded by sleep for a 
brain to play all sorts of pranks with its cells, 
granules, and elements is taken advantage of, and 
dreams are the outcome of its unguarded or mor- 
bid action. 

One of the marked characteristics of dreams is 
their independence of volition, reason, and judg- 
ment, a cerebral condition similar to that which 
occurs in sleep. It is a curious and suggestive 
fact that the retirement of the blood from the 
frontal lobes, and from the periphery of the hem- 
ispheres, which is coincident with the retirement 
of volition, reason, and judgment from activity, 
is also coincident with congestion of the base of 
the brain, with unrestrained if not with augmented 
activity of sensory, motor, emotional, and autom- 

19 



290 visions. 

atic action, and with sleep and dreams. It seems 
as if the undiscovered power which introduces 
sleep and permits dreams, while doing so, plays 
upon one part of the brain in such a way as to 
inhibit blood supply and the action of the Ego, 
and at the same time plays upon another part so 
as to increase blood supply, and, regardless of the 
Ego, set free automatic action. At any rate, with- 
out pushing our speculations further in this attrac- 
tive direction, it is clear that there is a suspension 
of volitional control over the higher and lower 
cerebral ganglia when dreaming. Then the Ego 
becomes a passive spectator, and generally an in- 
different one, of whatever scenes automatic action 
produces. It should be remembered, however, 
that the abdication of volition in dreams is never 
absolute and final. Dreamers are sometimes con- 
scious of attempting to watch and guide their 
dreams, and not infrequently of an effort to regain 
self-control. If a dream is so vivid as to make 
the excitement it produces intense, the dreamer is 
apt to awake, when volition, reason, and judgment 
resume their functions. This, however, occurs 
rarely. The rule is that dreams are characterized 
by an absence of volition from the field of cere- 
bral activity. 

Automatism is another characteristic of dreams, 
as well as of sleep. It has already been stated 
that the repair of nerve tissue is most actively 
carried on during sleep. It is scarcely necessary 
to add that this repair is exclusively an automatic 



VISIONS. 291 

process, which implies, at that period, not only 
unusual activity, bat unusual sensitiveness of the 
automatic machinery of the brain. Cells and cell 
elements of all sorts are in commotion, and in 
greater or less numbers are brought within the 
sphere of automatic influence. Cell groups as- 
sociated by near and easily recognized ties, and 
those united by distant, obscure, and forgotten 
links, are pushed or drawn up into the field of in- 
tra-cranial observation, and stimulate the visual, 
auditory, motor, or other cerebral centre. Thus 
excited, these nerve centres begin to functionate 
by their own inherent automatic power as actively 
as if the whole brain were awake. The cell 
groups thus brought together form the organic 
basis, or hieroglyphics, of dreams. Groups, or 
elements, which at any time during the dreamer's 
past life may have been brought together within 
the range of subjective vision, hearing, motion, 
sensation, or ideation may be and often are drawn 
within the circle of automatic action, and made 
the subject of a sort of automatic contemplation. 
A corpse seen yesterday may enter into last night's 
dream. When the cell groups representing that 
corpse are collected, they might readily attract to 
themselves, under the influence of automatism, 
another set of groups representing the first corpse 
seen in childhood, and the scene of its burial. 
A stranger from India, who mingled with the 
funeral cortege, might be recalled, by the revival 
of the elements representing him, and with him 



292 visions. 

would come all the " splendor and havoc " of the 
East with which the dreamer was acquainted, and 
so on indefinitely. 

Incongruity and incoherence are characteristics 
of dreams which few have failed to recognize, and 
which dreams would, a priori, be expected to ex- 
hibit. Volition absent and automatism supreme, 
congruity and coherence could not be anticipated 
from the fortuitous revival of antecedently stamped 
cells and cell elements. Children have a game 
for the playing of which cards, inscribed with a 
single letter, word, or part of a phrase, are thrown 
together into a common receptacle. The wit of 
the game consists in withdrawing the cards one by 
one, placing them in a line, in juxtaposition, and 
reading the result. Generally only a meaning- 
less jumble appears ; sometimes a familiar word 
is formed, and rarely, very rarely, an intelligible 
phrase crops out of the confusion. When this oc- 
curs, the wonder of the players reaches the highest 
degree of amazement. Something like this occurs 
in dreams. Sensitized cells, of which some are 
inscribed with a single event or individual, others 
with complex scenes or actions, some belonging to 
the near, others to the remote past, and possessing 
no apparent bond of union, are thrown into the 
sensorium commune, a sort of common receptacle 
and there they are arranged together, with the 
result of obtaining grotesque, incoherent, incon- 
gruous, and unexpected forms, and of exciting 
a correspondingly unexpected and unintelligible 



visions. 293 

kind of ideation. It has already been intimated 
that in normal sleep no such by-play of our cere- 
bral machinery takes place. All is quiet, then. 
The automatic cell revival is frequently sufficient 
to make the dreamer remember that there have 
been visions in his sleep, but not sufficient to ena- 
ble him to recall them. Occasionally, the revived 
impressions are so vivid and natural as to arouse 
and fix the attention of the Ego, and be remem- 
bered in detail on awaking. In rare instances, the 
vividness and artistic presentation become start- 
ling, and the dreamer is almost persuaded, perhaps 
is really convinced, that his visions had an objec- 
tive basis, and that he was visited by a supernat- 
ural message or messenger. 

From this brief examination of some of the 
characteristics of dreams it is evident that com- 
mon sense takes no part in the visions of sleep. 
Where volition is wanting, where reason and judg- 
ment are in abeyance, and no regard is paid to in- 
coherence of thought or incongruity of action, com- 
mon sense cannot be expected to appear. And 
such, as we have intimated, is the fact. A dreamer 
regards the strangest jumble of events, the most 
singular confusion of thought, and the most unnat- 
ural ordering of life, with as much complacency 
and satisfaction as he derives from the contempla- 
tion of the noblest actions, or the manifestations of 
supreme order and beauty. He is not disturbed 
because a man in Boston converses with his wife 
in Calcutta ; or a corpse drives itself to the grave, 



294 visions. 

instead of being driven there ; or a mosquito as- 
sumes the proportions of an elephant ; or a child 
of five reasons with the wisdom of Solomon. To 
him all this is credible and natural. But still 
more surprising than the absence of common 
sense from dreams is the entire absence of the 
moral sense from them. This too is to be ex- 
pected, for a mechanism has no soul. Automa- 
tism will yield order and perfection of workman- 
ship, but it can never breed love of goodness or 
hatred of evil. The dreamer regards virtue and 
vice, an act of violence and a deed of love, fiends 
and angels, all that is good and all that is evil, 
with an equal eye. It is recorded by a recent 
writer that a certain Mr. D. of Edinburgh dreamed 
he ran his best friend through with a sword. In 
his account of the dream, Mr. D. states that he 
was not at all disturbed by his commission of the 
deed, or the death of his friend. On the contrary, 
he was pleased with his own expertness as a 
swordsman, and watched with simple curiosity 
the effect of his blow, and was delighted to see 
how accurately the point of his sword came out 
from the body of his friend, almost precisely op- 
posite the point at which he had caused it to enter. 
His delight was that of a marksman who hits his 
mark. Similar illustrations might be multiplied 
indefinitely, but it is unnecessary to give any more 
of them. The reader's own experience and reflec- 
tion will be sufficient to confirm the truth of the 
statement that the moral sense does not enter into 



visions. 295 

dream life. A troubled conscience may produce 
dreams, but dreams themselves are not troubled 
by a conscience of any sort. 

By the statement that the visions of sleep lack 
the guidance of volition, and are independent of 
reason, judgment, common sense, and the moral 
sense, it is not intended to assert that they are 
independent of intellection also. So far is this 
from being the case that, within certain limits, 
the opposite of it is true. The dreamer reasons, 
not as he would do if he were awake, but in a 
way satisfactory to himself. Moreover, his con- 
clusions always seem to him to be valid. He is 
never surprised at any result at which he may 
arrive. Indeed, it is one of the characteristics of 
dreams to be free from the element of surprise. 
If a dreamer, who feels a pain in his toe, infers, 
possibly stimulated to the inference by the heat 
of his room, that Mount ^Etna is pressing upon 
his foot, he is not disturbed by the conclusion, but 
readily accepts it. One of the chief difficulties in 
the way of comprehending the natural history and 
physiology of dreams is found in the fact that 
reason is absent from dreams, and yet that the 
dreamer reasons. A portion of the difficulty 
would disappear if it were borne in mind that 
reason and reasoning are not the same things. 
Reason is a faculty of the mind, or, if a different 
phrase is preferred, an attribute of the Ego, gifted 
with the divine power and privilege of recognizing 
truth, of discriminating good from evil, and so 



296 visions. 

of acting as a guide to humanity, through the 
mazes of error to the loftiest heights of truth. 
This faculty takes no part in dreams. Reasoning, 
on the contrary, is a process, not a faculty ; and it 
may be good or bad, logical or illogical, sound or 
absurd. It is altogether independent of reason. 
Hence, there is no contradiction in asserting that 
a dreamer reasons, but does not use his reason. 
Reasoning enters largely into the texture of 
dreams, but is not in them subjected to the test 
of reason. Bearing this distinction in mind, it is 
not difficult to conceive that in dreams, where 
reason is absent, the most absurd reasoning should 
be carried on. Moreover, if physiology should 
demonstrate, by and by, as it probably will, that 
reasoning is a mechanical process, performed in 
our waking hours under the guidance of the Ego, 
by the machinery of the brain, and therefore 
automatic, it will then be evident that the reason- 
ing of dreams is only a part of the automatic ac- 
tion which is their chief characteristic. There are 
some remarkable instances on record of great in- 
tellectual effort in dreams. Condillac's composi- 
tion of a part of his Oours cCfitudes is an illustra- 
tion in point. The writer is acquainted with a 
gentleman who performed a long and difficult 
piece of intellectual work with accuracy, in a 
dream. He was in college at the time and har- 
assed by work. On one occasion, he was sur- 
prised at finding himself sitting up, in his night- 
clothes, at his study table, an hour or two after 



visions. 297 

midnight, with a task accomplished which, on the 
evening previous, he was unable to comprehend. 
Carpenter calls such labor unconscious cerebration. 
By using such a term he indicates its automatic 
character. 

Dreamers have been compared to children, and 
dreams to children's fancies^ The comparison is 
not a fortunate one. For children possess the 
germs of all the faculties of adult life, none being 
in abeyance. It would be more accurate to say 
that dreamers resemble animals, who exhibit the 
force of automatic action, with little or no inter- 
ference from other sources. It is worthy of re- 
mark in this connection, that in regard to the 
absence of moral sense from dreams, to which allu- 
sion has already been made, dreamers and animals 
are alike. Perhaps the best distinction between 
man and the animal creation below him, is the 
fact, that man is the only animal that calls him- 
self to account for his own actions. When a dog 
worries a cat, there is no evidence that he retires, 
after his amusement is over, to consider whether 
he has been engaged in a good or an evil action, 
and to call himself to an account, accordingly. 
There is no evidence that any of the lower ani- 
mals ever enter into this sort of self-examination. 
Man alone does this. Man alone calls himself to 
account for his own deeds, irrespective of the fear 
^f punishment, or the hope of reward. In dreams 
this distinction is obliterated, and the dreamer, 
losing the moral sense, is assimilated to a lower 



298 visions. 

order of beings. It is possible that this fact gives 
us a hint of what animals sometimes seem to be 
thinking of. Who that has watched a horse, gaz- 
ing intently upon some passing show ; or a cow, 
quietly ruminating in the shade of a tree ; or a 
dog, watching a body of laborers at work ; or a 
cat musing before the fire ; or a canary bird, in- 
tently listening to the gossip of a family breakfast 
near its cage, has not wondered what these ani- 
mals were thinking of? Possibly like dreamers 
they are simply watching, without any regard to 
the quality of the action, how the thing will come 
out. Often stimulated by what they see to the 
most strange and fantastic actions, their fancies, 
like a dreamer's ideation, are strange, grotesque, 
and meaningless ; and so are dreams. 

It has been stated by some observers, that 
dreams are not wholly deprived of the guidance 
of volition, or of a certain amount of judgment. 
The evident attempts at harmony of combination 
and selection of objects of attention, which dreams 
have sometimes exhibited, have been regarded as 
evidence that reason, judgment, and volition are 
not always and wholly excluded from the visions 
of sleep. This conclusion is not warranted by 
the facts of physiology. On the contrary, the 
amount and sort of volition which appear in 
dreams and the apparent exercise of choice which 
they put forth are evidences, not of the action of 
the Ego, but of automatic power. The thorough 
materialist resolves all volition into reflex or au- 



visions. 299 

tomatic action, pretty good evidence, not of the 
correctness of his conclusions, but of the fact that 
a large amount of what has been regarded hitherto 
as belonging to the function of the mind and the 
will is really automatic. Probably no physiologist 
at the present day would refer the small amount 
of spontaneous action and attention which dreams 
exhibit, to any other source than automatism. 
The character of the reflex function of the nerv- 
ous system was so fully explained and illustrated 
in the first part of this essay, that it is only nec- 
essary to refer to it here as a chief factor in the 
production of that sort of movement in dreams, 
which seems to be the result of volition and at- 
tention. The highest and most delicate opera- 
tions of automatic action are so like spontaneity 
and conscious attention, that this sort of automa- 
tism is sometimes called automatic volition and 
automatic attention. No kind of selection is so 
exact, and apparently intelligent as that which is 
automatic. Put a dozen bits of iron filings and a 
dozen grains of broken granite together on a table, 
hold over and near them a magnet, and the mag- 
net will select and pick up the iron with unerring 
certainty. If a dog is following his lost master 
over a public highway, and comes to a place 
where the road divides into several paths, all of 
which bear the impress of innumerable human 
toot-prints, inextricably blended together, the dog 
will unhesitatingly select and follow his master's 
foot-print. In the case of the magnet there is 



300 VISIONS. 

simply selection ; in the case of the dog, there are 
both selection and volition. The dog selects his 
master's foot-print and determines to follow it. 
In both cases the actions are automatic. And so 
in the visions of sleep a cell-group, drawn within 
the circle of automatic influence, may be so sensi- 
tized that like the magnet it attracts certain other 
cell-groups, thus exercising what seems to be in- 
telligent selection. And as a dog, after receiving 
the impression of a special odor, determines to 
follow the foot-print which exhales it, so a nerve 
ganglion, after receiving the impression of a pain 
in the foot, decides to send a motor influence 
down to the motor apparatus of the foot and re- 
move the suffering part. This act, which is ap- 
parently volitional, is automatic. Cells, or cell- 
groups, which possess an affinity for each other, 
attract each other ; and this they do irrespective 
of volition. Throw a handful of sand upon a 
drum-head, and let a person play an instrument 
of music near by, and the sand will arrange it- 
self in orderly lines and harmonious groups ; let 
a number of brain cells, impressed, like the nega- 
tive of a photograph, with past individuals, events, 
scenes, men, rivers, trees, all that makes up the 
scenery of life, be present in the brain, as they 
are in the silence of the night, and then let some 
strain of music strike the ear, or a cool blast of 
air sweep over the face, or a crack in the wood- 
work go off like a pistol, or a child scream in a 
neighboring room, or the colic from an undigested 



VISIONS. 301 

potato send up a sudden pain into the brain, and 
the brain cells lying there, unstable and unexcited, 
will arrange themselves into some sort of grouping 
in harmony with the strain of music, the scream, 
or the colic, just as the sand heaps arrange 
themselves on a drum-head in harmony with the 
note of a flute, or a strain from Nilsson's throat. 
This combination, with the ideas it produces, is 
a dream. This harmony of adjustment seems to 
indicate intelligence and volition, while in reality 
it is no more so than the harmonious jumping 
about of sand on the drum-head. 

Another characteristic of dreams, and one by no 
means to be neglected, is the apparent rapidity of 
action which they exhibit. Events, which in our 
waking life require years for their occurrence, take 
place in the course of a few days, hours, or min- 
utes. A child may grow in our dreams from in- 
fancy to manhood in a few moments. A dream 
may witness the beginning and end of a civil war. 
A dreamer, regardless of the difference of time 
which separates Caesar from General Grant, would 
place himself at a dinner table between the two, 
and chat with them as contemporaries. A friend, 
who called upon the writer yesterday, dreamed 
the night previous that he took a walk with the 
Reverend Lyman Beecher, and the elder Josiah 
Quincy of Boston, and was not at all surprised at 
their simultaneous appearance as his companions. 
Space is annihilated in dreams as well as time. 
The world is dwarfed to the compass of a dream- 



802 VISIONS. 

er's arms. B. in Boston talks with C in Calcutta 
as easily as if they sat in chairs that touched each 
other. An allusion was made a little way back to 
the fact, that sleep resembles death ; and it is the 
best counterfeit of the great mystery that we know 
anything of. It is a curious and suggestive 
thought that dreams, which occur only in sleep, 
and so occur only in a state which bears the like- 
ness of death, should be characterized by a fact 
which, if there be any future life, can only be 
realized in that future existence. The fact to 
which we refer is the characteristic just men- 
tioned, that dreams are free from the limitations 
of time and space. The dreamer, partially es- 
caped from the fetters of the flesh, roams like a 
disembodied spirit, without time or space to hinder 
him. In the future life there can be no such 
thing as time. A thousand years are as one day, 
and one day as a thousand years. In the future 
life there can be no such thing as space. New 
England, Australia, in that existence, are neigh- 
bors to the mountains in the moon, to Arcturus 
and the Milky Way. This must be so, or there is 
no future life. A child dies in Yokohama, an J the 
instant the soul leaps from the body, it can talk 
to its earthly parent in Boston, as if the Pacific 
and the Rocky Mountains and the prairies did not 
intervene. And thus it happens that one of the 
strangest facts of dream life — a life that exists 
only in sleep, and comes and goes like a flash, — 
hints at a life which has neither beginning nor 



visions. 303 

end, and is bounded by no limits which human 
thought can compass. 

These are some of the characteristics of dreams. 
Others might be mentioned, but these are enough 
to show how singularly and curiously they har- 
monize with the conditions of sleep. They are 
simply the unconscious cerebration of that por- 
tion of the brain, over which sleep has no power. 
Sleep affords the opportunity, within certain lim- 
its, for the brain to act of itself, and dreams are 
the result. 

Dreams exhibit every possible variety. They 
may be roughly classified thus : first, simple 
dreams ; second, medleys ; and third, artistic 
dreams. 

Simple dreams consist of a single event or scene. 
Sometimes they are concerned only with a single 
individual, as when one dreams of seeing the face 
or form of a relative or friend, without any attend- 
ant circumstances ; sometimes thev are concerned 
with a single occurrence, like falling down a preci- 
pice, or breaking one's nose, or swallowing a snake, 
or starting on a journey, or receiving or giving an 
injury, or a benefit, or in some way being the sub- 
ject or the spectator of some common or strange, 
expected or unforeseen, pleasant or horrible, oc- 
currence. They are a play in a single act. The 
second class of dreams or medleys are perhaps the 
most common of all. They consist of several in- 
dividuals or events, mixed up in a strange and 
incongruous way. Oftentimes they are composed 



304 visions. 

of a series of disconnected events or scenes, the 
details of which are filled with animals, and ob- 
jects, and human beings, fairies, grotesque crea- 
tions and equally grotesque combinations, and all 
the odd stuff with which dreamers are familiar. 
Sometimes it is possible to trace the threads of 
connection which draw such a medley together, 
but more commonly they escape the most careful 
scrutiny. That there is some secret attraction, 
which draws these images into the field of auto- 
matic cerebral activity during sleep, when the 
higher centres of the brain are quiet, cannot be 
doubted.. Such visions of sleep are plays in sev- 
eral acts, of which the various parts are thrown 
confusedly together, and the actors drawn from 
the past experience of the dreamer's life. Artistic 
dreams are of occasional though not of frequent 
occurrence. They are made up of individuals, 
events, and scenes, which form more or less of an 
harmonious combination. Like pictures which ar- 
tists call compositions, they are made up of de- 
tails, taken like the details of a medley from life's 
varied experience, and harmoniously blended, so 
that the whole forms a scene, or a series of scenes, 
which are startling on account of their appearance 
of vivid reality. Such dreams do not often take 
place, but when they do they are regarded by 
some persons with a sort of superstitious awe, as 
prophecies of the future, or interpreters of the 
present. Examples are better than description ; 
and therefore let us endeavor to use the doctrine 



VISIONS. 305 

of the preceding pages as a key to the explana- 
tion of a few dreams, given as illustrations of the 
visions of sleep. 

A young medical gentleman, busy with his pro- 
fessional studies, had occasion to spend the night 
at the house of a stranger. His host was an in- 
valid. The house as well as its occupants were 
unfamiliar to the guest. Before retiring the vis- 
itor, whom we will call Mr. H., called upon his 
host and bade him good-night in his bed. Mr. 
H. was then conducted to his own chamber by 
the daughter of his host and a female servant. 
Sometime during the night he dreamed that he was 
in a strange place. Where it was, and wiiat he 
was there for, he did not know. Presently he 
saw a bed in his room and apparently somebody 
in the bed. He got up to find out who had in- 
truded upon him, when he found that a bed was 
really there, and that there lay stretched at full 
length upon it a female, covered with a sort of 
drapery, and having an extremely pale counte- 
nance. A closer examination showed that she 
was dead, and laid out like a corpse. Not fancy- 
ing a neighbor of that sort, he was about to re- 
monstrate with his host for being put into a 
chamber thus occupied, when he awoke, and it 
was a dream. This belongs to the class of simple 
dreams, and happens to admit of an easy expla- 
nation. Its chief interest lies in the fact that it 
illustrates the principles which have here been en- 
forced. Mr. H. was a medical student. He was, 
20 



306 visions. 

of course, a good deal occupied with the labor and 
occupants of the dissecting-room. Corpses of 
both sexes and all ages, placed in all sorts of posi- 
tions, and wearing all sorts of expressions, were 
familiar to him. Groups of brain cells and cell 
elements, the hieroglyphic representatives of these 
ghastly beings, were latent in his brain, ready at 
any time to be evoked. With this sort of furni- 
ture in his brain, he spent the night at a strange 
house among strange people. One of the last 
things he saw before retiring was a sick man 
stretched upon a bed. Among the very last ob- 
jects pictured upon his brain, before going to 
sleep, were two females who conducted him to his 
chamber. Moreover, it happened that the few 
minutes conversation which he held with his host 
as he bade him good-night, were about death and 
dying. From this it appears that Mr. H., hav- 
ing a brain furnished with dissecting room pic- 
tures, went to bed in a strange house, among 
strange people, having just before going to sleep 
talked about death, seen a sick man stretched 
upon a couch and looked upon two females who 
ushered him into his chamber. After he got to 
sleep, a slight attack of indigestion, enough to 
make him grit his teeth and groan faintly, stimu- 
lated the automatic activity of his brain ; and his 
brain, thus stimulated, produced the dream, which 
was in reality a reproduction of what was familiar 
to him. Sleeping in a strange place made him 
dream that he was transported to some mysterious 



visions. 307 

locality. Talking about dying brought death 
into his dream. Associated with death came the 
familiar corpses of the dissecting room. His host 
sick on a bed, brought the sick bed and reclining 
figure into his room, while the females who bade 
him good-night turned the figure from a man into 
a woman. Thus it appears that all the stuff of his 
dream was in the cells of his brain, and indiges- 
tion set the machinery at work which combined 
them into a picture. 

The following incident, which is a curious illus- 
tration of the automatic dream power of the brain, 
occurred to Lord Brougham, and is given here in 
his own language : — 

" Tired with the cold of yesterday, I was glad to take 
advantage of a hot bath before I turned in. And here 
a most remarkable thing happened to me — so remark- 
able that 1 must tell the story from the beginning. 

After I left the High School, I went with G , my 

most intimate friend, to attend the classes in the Uni- 
versity. There was no divinity class, but we frequently 
in our walks discussed and speculated upon many grave 
subjects, among others, on the immortality of the soul, 
and on a future state. This question and the possibility, 
I will not say of ghosts walking, but of the dead ap- 
pearing to the living, were subjects of much speculation ; 
and we actually committed the folly of drawing up an 
agreement, written with our blood, to the effetet that 
whichever of us died the first should appear to the 
other, and thus solve any doubts we had entertained of 
the " life after death." After we had finished our classes 
at the college, G went to India, having got an ap- 



308 visions. 

pointment there in the civil service. He seldom wrote 
to me, and after the lapse of a few years I had almost 
forgotten him : moreover, his family having little connec- 
tion with Edinburgh, I seldom saw or heard anything 
of them, or of him through them, so that all the old 
school-boy intimacy had died out, and I had nearly for- 
gotten his existence. I had taken, as I have said, a 
warm bath ; and while lying in it and enjoying the com- 
fort of the heat after the late freezing I had undergone, 
I turned my head round, looking toward the chair on 
which I had deposited my clothes, as I was about to 

get up out of the bath. On the chair sat G looking 

calmly at me. How I got out of the bath I knew not, 
but on recovering my senses I found myself sprawling 
on the floor. The apparition, or whatever it was, that 

had taken the likeness of G , had disappeared ; the 

vision produced such a shock that I had no inclination 
to talk about it, or to speak about it even to Stuart, 
but the impression it made upon me was too vivid to be 
easily forgotten ; and so strongly was I affected by it, 
that I have here written down the whole history, with 
the date, 19th December, and all the particulars as they 
are now fresh before me. No doubt I had fallen 
asleep; and that the appearance presented so distinctly 
to my eyes was a dream, I cannot for a moment doubt ; 

yet for years I had no communication with G , nor 

had there been anything to recall him to my recollec- 
tion ; nothing had taken place during our Swedish 

travels either connected with G , or with India, or 

with anything relating to him, or to any member of his 
family." .... 

More that half a century later Lord Brougham 
supplemented the preceding account by the fol- 
lowing note : — 



VISIONS. 309 

"E. Brougham, Oct. 16, 1862. 
I have just been copying out from my journal the 
account of this strange dream : Certissima mortis imago ! 
And now to finish the story begun about sixty years 
since. Soon after my return to Edinburgh there ar- 
rived a letter from India announcing G.'s death ! aud 
stating that he had died on the 19th of December ! ! " 1 

Many of the data necessary to a satisfactory 
explanation of this singular vision, are not to be 
found in Lord Brougham's account of it ; but 
enough are given, however, to enable a physiolo- 
gist to frame a probable and reasonable explana- 
tion. It will be noticed that this description gives 
an account of two entirely different phenomena. 
One is the vision which appeared to Lord Brough- 
am in his bath ; the other, the death of his friend 
G. in India. These two phenomena, the vision 
in England, and the death in India, should not be 
confounded together. They are not necessarily 
parts of the same event, and we must not hastily 
assume that they bear the relation to each other 
of cause and effect because the vision and the 
death occurred simultaneously. Let the fact of 
G.'s death, at the time of the vision, be laid aside 
for the present and the vision alone considered. 

The facts are these. When Lord Brougham 
was a young man, gifted, as the world knows he 
was, with intellectual power of the highest order, 
he became intimate with another young man of 

1 The Life and Letters of Henry Lord Brougham, written by him- 
self. New York, 1871. Vol. i., p. 146. 



310 VISIONS. 

congenial tastes, and undoubtedly of considerable 
intellectual force. As fellow students they dis- 
cussed, it appears, some of the greatest themes 
with which the human mind ever grapples, such 
as immortality, God, the problems of human life, 
and similar themes ; some of which Lord Brough- 
am has since studied and expounded with singular 
ability. It is difficult to conceive of circumstances, 
better calculated than these to impress, power- 
fully and profoundly, the mind of one so gifted as 
Lord Brougham. Impressions naturally made by 
such discussions as have been described, were 
deepened by a compact, made with all the folly 
and enthusiasm of which genius is capable, and 
consecrated and sealed with the blood of those 
who made it. Like the oath of Grutli, the com- 
pact was intended to be sacred and inviolate, 
reaching beyond this life into the next. The cells 
of young Brougham's brain must have been 
stamped, more deeply than ever before by any 
other event, with the features of his friend G.'s 
face, and with the ideas and hopes and resolutions 
which the compact they had entered into inspired. 
G. disappeared from the orbit of Brougham's life. 
The brain cells which had been thus stamped, 
sensitized like a photographic plate, were laid away 
in the recesses of Brougham's brain. There they 
were deposited, the hieroglyphic representations of 
G.'s face and form and of the compact and the 
attendant ideas, like a portrait in a garret, or a 
manuscript in a drawer, ready to be brought out 



VISIONS. 311 

whenever anything should occur, capable of drag- 
ging them into the light. The cells remained 
latent in Brougham's brain for a long period, with- 
out anything to call them into the region of per- 
ception. Still the cells were there ; they were 
deeply stamped and were in a condition to be 
called into activity at any time. With a brain 
containing the cell-group referred to, Lord Brough- 
am got a chill, while travelling in Sweden, and 
after the chill refreshed himself, with what he 
says was a warm bath. It is evident from the 
result of the bath, that the water was hot rather 
than warm. Lord Brougham got from the heat 
to which he exposed himself a congestion of the 
brain. The congestion clearly was not apoplexy, 
yet it was near being so, for he says that he fell 
asleep but still contrived to get out of his bath- 
tub, and then fell upon the floor, unconscious. 
It will be remembered that a moderate anaemia 
of the periphery of the brain, and a moderate hy- 
peremia of the base of the brain are among the 
conditions of sleep, and consequently of dreams 
which occur only in sleep. The congestion pro- 
duced by the bath naturally intensified these con- 
ditions. What Lord Brougham had been talking 
about with his friend, Stuart, shortly before the 
bath, does not appear from the description ; but 
it would be strange if the subjects of God and 
a future life did not enter into their conversa- 
tion, when we reflect that such subjects occupied 
ft very large share of Lord Brougham's attention 



312 visions. 

and study during his whole life. We know from 
his account of the case, that he examined and dis- 
cussed them with G. Such a discussion, added to 
the stimulus of a warm bath, would be sufficient 
to bring within the sphere of automatic activity 
the latent cell-groups which were the represent- 
atives of G. The groups appeared ; subjective 
vision was accomplished ; and Lord Brougham 
saw the friend of his youth apparently projected 
into space before him. 

The connection between the death of G. in 
India, and the vision in Brougham's brain, is prob- 
ably only that of coincidence. At any rate, phys- 
iology has no explanation to offer of such a phe- 
nomenon. Those who believe that it is more 
than coincidence must seek for an explanation by 
means which science cannot employ, and in a 
region into which physiology cannot enter. And, 
moreover, such persons must not forget the fact 
previously mentioned, that the future life is not 
conditioned by time or space ; so that when G. 
died in India he was as near Brougham in 'Eng- 
land as if they were in the same room. Hence, 
looking at the vision from the spiritual side, we 
can conceive how G., having no limits of space 
between him and Brougham at the moment of 
death, should at that moment instantly be near 
him. But how G. could communicate with Lord 
Brougham is again a matter about which we are 
utterly ignorant. In reality, we do not know how 
we communicate with each other. The lips open, 



VISIONS. 313 

the tongue moves, and the air vibrates, but I do 
not know how that makes an idea pass from me 
to you, or from you to me. Still less can we 
guess how a disembodied spirit can communicate 
with flesh and blood. 

One other suggestion may be made. God never 
employs anew method, thatfs, a supernatural one, 
when an old method, that is, a natural one, will 
accomplish the object he has in view. He loves 
to employ the simplest measures. The same 
mathematical curve, which governs the growth of a 
violet, guides the stars in their courses. Follow- 
ing this law, we should expect that G., if he 
wished to appear to Brougham, would not reclothe 
himself with our miserable habiliments of flesh, 
but would simply act upon Brougham's brain in a 
way to produce subjective vision. So God may 
act upon the human brain, so as to indicate his 
presence and become a working force in it, with- 
out ever assuming a gross anthropomorphic objec- 
tive form. 

The following dream resembles in some respects 
the preceding one, and illustrates even better than 
that the method which the brain pursues in pro- 
ducing dreams : — 

" The most frequent general organic condition of the 
sensory apparatus during the existence of hallucinatioDs 
would appear to be one of congestion, or fulness of 
blood. A circumstance directly illustrative of this is 
related in the 'Psychological Journal' for April, 1857, 
as occurring to the writer himself. He says: 'We 



31 1 VISIOXS. 

have known cases of ghost-seeing when wide awake, 
which have been cured by leeches at the front of the 
forehead, — evidently indicating that they have resulted 

from a congestive state of the perceptive faculties 

We were on a visit in , and had taken more wine 

than usual. It was the summer-time, and the weather 
very hot and dry, which combined sensations rendered 

us feverish and uncomfortable We went to bed, 

but not to sleep, and tossed and tumbled, changing our 
position every moment, but were too restless to repose ; 
at length we turned towards the window and perceived 
between it and the bed a short, thick-set, burly figure, 
with a huge head, staring us in the face. Certainly 
nothing could appear more real or substantial, and after 
gazing on this monstrous creature, we put out our hand, 
when he opened his ponderous jaws and bit at us. We 
tried various experiments with the creature, — such as 
putting our hand before his face, which seemed to cover 
a part of it. The longer we contemplated it, the more 
palpable was this figure, and the more wrathful were its 
features. Struck with the apparent reality of the ap- 
parition, we mechanically felt our pulse ; it was throb- 
bing at a fearful rate ; our skin was hot and dry, and 
the temporal arteries were throbbing at railway speed. 
This physical condition had produced the phantom. We 
then jumped out of bed, when the spectre seemed to be 
nearer and of more gigantic proportions. We then 
threw open the window to admit a little more air, 
sponged our head and body, and thus, by removing the 
cause, the monster disappeared.' " 1 

The second class of dreams or medleys is illus- 
trated by the following dream taken from Wundt. 

1 A Physician's Problems. Elam, p. 284. 



FEB 141949 



VISIONS. 815 

" I am able to illustrate by some examples this inter- 
weaving of various causes which may work together in 
such a way. I dreamt that a funeral procession in 
which I was to take part stopped before my house ; it 
was the burial of a friend who had died a short time 
previously. The wife of the deceased invited me and 
other friends to place ourselves upon the other side of 
the street in order to take part in the procession. As 
we went out an acquaintance remarked she only said 
that because there was cholera on that side of the street 
and she wished to retain this side for herself. Now the 
dream suddenly changed into the open air. I found 
myself in long and irregular by-ways in order to shun 
the places where cholera prevailed. When I finally, 
after straining every nerve in running, had reached the 
house, the funeral procession had departed. But still 
numerous bouquets of roses were strewed about the 
street, and a number of stragglers, who appeared to me 
in my dream as attendants upon the funeral, were all 
like myself in haste to rejoin the procession. These 
funeral attendants formed a motley crowd, especially 
some who were clad in red clothing. Whilst I hastened 
it occurred to me that I had forgotten a wreath which 
I had intended to lay upon the coffin. Thereupon, I 
awakened with palpitation of the heart." 



THE END. 






v 



